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A Bitcoin wallet that had not transacted since September 2013 moved its entire balance of 411.45 BTC on Sunday, worth roughly $34 million at today’s price near $82,600. The owner paid about $53,900 for the coins when Bitcoin traded around $131 — a 630-fold appreciation. The funds went to a new private address, not an exchange.Thirteen Years Without a Single TransactionThe wallet received the bulk of its coins on September 11, 2013, and the owner did not buy, sell or move anything for the next 13 years.That period included three halvings — July 2016, May 2020 and April 2024 — the 2017 retail boom and its collapse, the 2022 FTX failure, and the launch of US spot Bitcoin ETFs in 2024.At 18:23 UTC on Sunday the entire balance went out in a single transaction, with a fee of 337 satoshis, or about 28 cents.The Dust Was an Attack, and It FailedThe wallet did see activity over the years, though not from its owner. Dozens of deposits worth less than a dollar each trickled in, several from addresses Arkham Intelligence labels as phishing.That is address poisoning. Scammers send trace amounts of crypto to high-value wallets so their address appears in the transaction history, hoping the owner later copies it by mistake when making a transfer.Thirteen years of that, and the coins went to a correct address.Why This Coin Didn’t Move for 13 YearsThe cost basis explains the behaviour, and comparing cohorts makes it concrete.This wallet paid $131 per coin. Long-term holders across the network average $48,600 with a 72% unrealised cushion. Short-term holders average $74,900 with roughly 10% — meaning an 8.8% decline would put that entire group underwater.A holder sitting on 630 times their cost has no price at which they are forced to act. A holder with 10% has a level a bad week could reach. That asymmetry is why the oldest supply stays still while recent supply turns over constantly, and it is the structural reason dormant-wallet awakenings are rare enough to make news.The Scale Settles the Sale QuestionLong-dormant movements reliably spark speculation about an imminent sale, and the destination tells against it here — the receiving address has taken in only this transfer and sent nothing out, with no exchange deposit following.The arithmetic says more. At $34 million, this holding is about 0.34% of a single day’s spot volume on one major exchange.Even taken together, the recent awakenings are small. Two other wallets dormant for over a decade moved a combined 417 BTC the day before, and a whale untouched since the March 2020 crash moved $378 million the week prior. The three together come to roughly 5,400 BTC — about 0.027% of circulating supply.A market absorbing $10 billion a day does not notice $34 million, whatever the headline value.The Pattern Is Recurring, Not NewIsolated mega-whales have woken from prolonged dormancy repeatedly over the past two years, and the outcome has been consistent: most coins move to new private wallets rather than to exchanges.Custodial housekeeping is the mundane explanation and usually the correct one. Wallet software gets upgraded, key management gets consolidated, estates get reorganised, and hardware gets replaced. None of that requires a view on the price.The signal worth watching is not the movement itself but the destination. Dormant supply arriving at an exchange is a different event from dormant supply arriving at a fresh address, and so far this month every tracked case has been the second kind.

Tom Lee of Fundstrat Global Advisors said Friday’s stock selloff created a buying setup in crypto and semiconductors, not a broader downturn. He also named memory stocks, AI cloud providers and technology broadly as buys after pullbacks to technical support, according to BeInCrypto. Fundstrat strategist Mark Newton sees a possible market bottom Friday or Monday. The VIX rose sharply as higher oil prices stoked concerns about weekend escalation. Dan Greenhaus cited higher rates as pressure on speculative AI projects, while Ed Clissold said capital costs could slow the build-out. Third-quarter earnings are due in a couple of weeks; analysts expect S&P 500 profit growth of 25% to 26%, after 32% last quarter.

Binance founder and former CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) announced on X that the Japanese edition of "Freedom of Money" launches today, with more languages coming soon. CZ said all proceeds go to charity and the book is free of charge, thanking "Miss Bitcoin" Mai Fujimoto, Co-Founder of zERC20, for the translation.

Bitcoin climbed from an overnight low near $80,700 to just above $83,000 early Monday, then gave most of it back within half an hour to trade at $82,188, up 0.3% over 24 hours. The move tracked a rebound in technology futures after last week’s 5.5% Nasdaq 100 selloff. What it mostly confirmed is a range: the $80,000 area has now held four times in five sessions, and $84,000 has turned Bitcoin back three.The Range Is the Story, Not the BounceThe floor has been tested at $79,800 on Thursday, $80,746 on Friday, through the weekend, and $80,700 overnight. Four approaches, four holds.The ceiling has been rejected near $84,000 on October 13, again on October 14, and this morning at $83,000 — about $1,000 short of the level that stopped the earlier attempts.Monday’s half-hour round trip from $83,000 back to $82,400 says sellers were positioned at the top of that band. A market that bounces off both boundaries without breaking either is consolidating, and the next informative move is whichever edge gives way first.A sustained push through $84,000 would be the first evidence the technology rebound is pulling Bitcoin with it rather than past it.Bitcoin Barely Participated in the Tech BounceNasdaq 100 futures rose 1.1%, snapping the weeklong 5.5% decline. S&P 500 futures added 0.5%. An ETF tracking chipmakers jumped 3% before the US open, on course for its first gain in roughly 10 sessions.Bitcoin’s 0.3% is a fraction of that. Against a 3% move in the sector that caused last week’s damage, a 0.3% gain is not the correlated recovery the framing suggests.That cuts both ways. Bitcoin also fell only 1% on Friday while the Nasdaq dropped 2.3% and Strategy lost 9.2%. It is participating in neither direction with much conviction, which is what a range-bound asset does while the drivers around it resolve.Technology earnings this week are the event that settles the AI capital expenditure question. Five companies produced 93% of the S&P 500’s gains since July, and their results determine whether the rebound has a foundation.US Embassies Issued Alerts Across 12 LocationsAmerican diplomatic missions issued security alerts covering Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Jordan, Bahrain, Oman, Iran, Qatar, Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen and Israel, warning citizens of potential flight cancellations and airspace closures.The alerts cite Iranian threats and Houthi escalation — two distinct threat vectors, and the distinction matters for reading the oil market. Iran borders the Strait of Hormuz, which carried 10.9 million barrels a day in September. Houthi forces operate from Yemen against the Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb, a separate route.Both chokepoints are now in play. Coverage that routes all of this through Hormuz understates the geography and misidentifies which flows are exposed. US midterm early voting is also under way, which is the political backdrop to the strike speculation.The Brent-WTI Spread Is Where the Risk ShowsWTI recovered to $98.55 from a $96.72 Asian-session low. Brent slipped from a five-month high near $110.That puts the spread between the two at roughly $11.45, up from $8.29 on Friday. A widening gap means international supply is being disrupted more than US supply — precisely the signature of chokepoint risk, since Brent prices seaborne crude that must transit those straits while WTI prices landlocked US production.One number needs a footnote. WTI closed at $101.71 on Friday, so $98.55 represents a 3.1% fall, which the stated 0.5% daily decline does not account for. A futures contract roll to a new front month is the likely explanation, and the piece should say so rather than leave readers to reconcile it.Europe Moved the Other WayThe Stoxx 600 fell 0.8% following a weekend of protests in France. French bonds led a selloff in European debt and the euro was the weakest major currency. The dollar was flat.That divergence is worth noting alongside the US rebound. Fiscal stress in European sovereign debt has been a recurring theme this month, and it is running independently of the AI credit story driving US markets.

XRP spot ETFs recorded a net outflow of $1.8375 million across the trading week of October 12 to 16, according to SoSoValue data. The figure that matters more sits in the same dataset: the funds have attracted $1.800 billion in cumulative net inflows and hold net assets of $1.470 billion — a gap of $330 million, or 18.3% of invested capital.Investors Are Down 18.3% on What They Put InCumulative net inflows measure money contributed. Net assets measure what that money is currently worth.The $330 million difference is the aggregate unrealised loss across everyone who has bought into these products since launch. On average, a dollar invested in an XRP spot ETF is worth about 82 cents today.That is a function of the XRP price rather than anything about the funds themselves — these are passive vehicles tracking a spot asset. But it is the number that describes the experience of the people holding them, and it does not appear anywhere in the weekly flow data that usually leads coverage.The Weekly Outflow Is Statistical NoiseAt $1.8375 million against $1.470 billion of assets, last week’s net outflow represents 0.125% of the complex — one-eighth of one percent.For context, these same funds were the only one of five crypto ETF categories to post positive flows the week before, at roughly $740,000. That reading generated headlines about XRP bucking the trend.Both figures are too small to support a narrative in either direction. A product category that moves under $4 million in a week on a $1.47 billion base is being held rather than traded.Only Three Funds Saw Any Flow at AllThe three named funds reconcile precisely to the weekly total: Bitwise XRP at −$3.0089 million, Canary’s XRPC at −$2.4734 million and Franklin Templeton’s XRPZ at +$3.6448 million sum to exactly −$1.8375 million.That exact match means every other XRP spot ETF recorded zero net flow for the entire week.Those other funds are not empty. The three named products account for $1.682 billion of the $1.800 billion cumulative total, leaving roughly $118 million spread across vehicles that saw no activity whatsoever.This Was Rotation, Not an ExitFranklin Templeton took in $3.64 million while Bitwise and Canary lost a combined $5.48 million.Money moving between wrappers for the same underlying asset is an issuer competition story rather than a sentiment one. Fee structures, platform availability and distribution agreements drive those shifts, and none of them say anything about a view on XRP.Over their histories the three are closer than the weekly figures suggest: Bitwise at $685 million, Franklin Templeton at $513 million and Canary at $484 million.

The largest ZEC long on Hyperliquid added about $7.2 million to its position, bringing its total long exposure across three tokens to nearly $30 million. According to BlockBeats On-chain Detection, the trader added 6,126.64 ZEC over the past three hours through TWAP orders, increasing the position by about 57.5% at an average price of $1,176.
The ZEC position now stands at 16,779.74 tokens, with an average entry price of $1,179.65. It is currently showing an unrealized loss of about $307,900, and its liquidation price is approximately $838.19. The trader began executing ZEC trades on July 19, and the current position dates to September 6; no reductions have been made.
The account also holds long positions of about 1.12 million NEAR and 1 billion PUMP. Across the ZEC, NEAR, and PUMP positions, total exposure is about $29.6 million, with ZEC accounting for approximately 65.8%.

According to the announcement from Binance, eligible holders of Dell Technologies (DELL) bStocks, known as DELLB, will receive the company’s cash dividend in the form of additional DELLB units or fractions. The net dividend will be reinvested after applicable withholding taxes, fees, costs, and other deductions. Users must hold DELLB at the record-date snapshot of 2026-10-20 00:00 (UTC) to qualify. On-chain DELLB holders will receive the dividend through a multiplier adjustment. General trading of DELLB/USDT will not be affected. Binance will suspend the 1:1 token conversion service between DELL stock and DELLB bStocks at 2026-10-19 23:30 (UTC). Deposits and withdrawals of DELLB, along with Binance Convert transactions for DELLB and associated pairs, will also be paused at 2026-10-19 23:30 (UTC). These services are expected to resume once the distribution is complete. Dividends earned from assets held in other accounts, including Savings and Margin accounts, will be credited to users’ Spot Accounts. Binance said it will manage the technical requirements for the distribution.

Michael Saylor said Strategy's USD duration is 3.4 years, based on assumptions of a 10% annualized Bitcoin yield, 40% Bitcoin volatility and a Bitcoin price of $81,468. According to NS3.AI, Saylor also said STRC's Bitcoin credit spread is 53 basis points under those assumptions.

Vitalik Buterin said EIP-8288 is the ideal way to support different cryptographic schemes: users generate arbitrary signatures locally, prove them with STARKs, and include them on-chain through a STARK aggregator without using calldata. According to Foresight News, Buterin said this approach could mean Ethereum would not need to add any more precompiles.

A Hyperliquid trader closed a $98 million Bitcoin long and opened a 20x Tesla long, while recording a $9.53 million loss over the past week. According to Odaily, the address 0x30af closed 1,355.6 BTC at an average price of $80,945 on October 18, ending a 40x leveraged position; Lookonchain estimated the trade loss at $3.26 million.
The trader then opened a $34.6 million Tesla long on Hyperliquid’s HIP-3 market using 20x isolated leverage. The position’s entry price was $360.23, with a liquidation price of about $350.74. Tesla is scheduled to report third-quarter results on October 21.
The address also held long positions worth $7.6 million in the Roundhill Memory ETF and $3.9 million in the Direxion Daily Semiconductor Bull 3X fund, using 20x and 10x leverage, respectively. Hyperdash data showed the account was down $6.52 million over the past month.

China's economy grew faster than expected in the third quarter, easing pressure on Beijing to roll out fresh stimulus — and sending the yuan to its strongest level in more than four years.Gross domestic product rose 4.5% in July-September from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said Monday, ahead of the 4.4% economists had forecast in a Reuters poll and up from 4.3% in the second quarter. Quarter on quarter, output expanded 1.2%, beating expectations of 1.1%. Cumulative GDP for the first nine months came in at 107.11 trillion yuan (about $16 trillion), a 4.6% gain that keeps the economy on track for the lower end of the official 4.5%-to-5% target for 2026.It was the most closely watched data release of the past year. Markets read it one way: the target is safe. On the current trajectory, officials do not need a fresh round of large-scale stimulus to defend the floor of their growth goal.Where the rebound came from matters more than the rebound itself.Base effects, fresh stimulus, exportsSeptember's monthly data drove the improvement. Retail sales rose 1.1% year on year, quickening from 0.4% in August and ahead of forecasts of 0.6% — the fastest pace since March. Industrial output climbed 5.5%, marginally above August's 5.2% and in line with expectations. Tianchen Xu, a senior economist at the Economist Intelligence Unit, said the September rebound "rescued an otherwise lackluster July and August," crediting stronger government investment, "exceptionally strong" external demand and a low base for comparison.Exports remain the fastest-spinning gear in the machine. September's trade surplus hit 1.2 trillion surplus for the full year. The European Union has agreed with Beijing to cap exports of Chinese hybrid vehicles, but Brussels is weighing further curbs — and September surpluses with Germany and France each jumped more than 200%.Policy turned more supportive in late September. On Sept. 29, Beijing announced credit-rate cuts aimed at infrastructure and technology, alongside modest mortgage subsidies; in early October it released 550 billion yuan (about $77 billion) of untapped local-government debt quota to ease fiscal strains and fund construction. Those measures nudged fixed-asset investment — down 7.2% in the first nine months — slightly narrower than the 7.3% decline recorded through August.Two gaps remain open. Property development investment fell 20.6% in January-September, a deeper slide than the 19.9% drop of the previous eight months. Sheana Yue, a senior economist at Oxford Economics, sees no sign of a floor in home prices, sales or new construction. The labor market looks better than it is. The surveyed urban jobless rate eased to 5.2% in September, but economists cited by Reuters note that gig work has flattered the reading — one hour of paid work a week counts as employed — while per-capida spending during the October Golden Week fell to a four-year low.Nominal growth hits 6%, but prices tell two storiesNominal output expanded at its fastest pace since the first quarter of 2022 — roughly 6%, by Caixin's calculations. The fuel was not household spending: energy prices and AI-linked products did most of the lifting.The price signals split. Producer prices rose 5% in September, the fastest in more than four years, while consumer prices have added just 0.9% for the year through September. Upstream costs rise; downstream prices barely move; margins absorb the difference. Yue expects companies to squeeze margins rather than attempt to pass costs on.That gap also explains the muted market response to a headline beat. Strip out inflation and September's real retail sales barely grew year on year, as Pinpoint Asset Management chief economist Zhiwei Zhang pointed out. Capital Economics attributed the month's industrial strength to external demand.Economists: target safe, quality in questionOptimists and skeptics shared the field after the release, arguing over one thing: whether the rebound can last.The bulls think it can. Xu expects full-year growth of 4.7%, above the floor of the official target, with the same three forces carrying into the fourth quarter. Goldman Sachs, writing before the release, had said only two consecutive quarters below 4.5% would sharply raise the pressure for more policy support — a concern now lifted. Its currency desk went further: Kamakshya Trivedi expects the yuan to strengthen to 6.4 per dollar within about a year, arguing the currency is undervalued by 20% to 25%.The skeptics focus on structure. Michelle Lam, an economist at Société Générale, warned that "China's export expansion cannot go on forever," and that without a decisive pivot toward household income and consumption the economy risks settling into years of low inflation and below-potential growth. ANZ wrote that the data "underscore deeper medium-term rebalancing challenges," that trade friction, protectionism and geopolitical tension "pose major risks to future growth," and that the economy is more exposed to outside shocks "than policymakers would like." Dave Chia of Moody's Analytics flagged the risk of relying on exports as the "single external engine."Then there are the skeptic-skeptics. Eswar Prasad, a professor at Cornell University, said the print may leave officials "more complacent," leaning passive rather than injecting stimulus while much-needed reforms wait. Zhaopeng Xing, a senior economist at ANZ, credited heavier fiscal spending with propping up investment and retail sales but called the recovery fragile, the fiscal outlook uncertain and 2027 growth exposed to downside risks. Elliot Clarke of Westpac conceded the beat while keeping his downside warnings on the table.Official voices acknowledge the same problems. Deputy bureau chief Mao Shengyong called the 4.6% nine-month figure "hard won," while conceding that development remains "unbalanced and insufficient"; advanced manufacturing, the digital economy and modern services accounted for more than 40% of growth in the period.A Reuters poll puts median expectations at 4.5% for the full year, easing to 4.4% in 2027. December's Central Economic Work Conference will sketch the policy line for 2027.Markets: yuan leads, stocks split, crypto warms upThe yuan moved first. The onshore currency ended 51 pips firmer at 6.6817 to the dollar, touching 6.6823 intraday; the offshore yuan hit 6.6818 — the strongest for both since July 2022. The daily fixing came in at 6.7208, a sixth straight stronger fix. A softer dollar did the rest of the work: the dollar index slipped toward 101.8, down 0.4% for the week and snapping a four-week winning streak.Chinese equities shrugged. The Shanghai Composite closed up 0.39% at 3,730.92; the Shenzhen index added 0.13%; the ChiNext lost 0.94%. The CSI 300, up 0.09% at 4,174.53, told the real story: banks led, gaining about 1.5%, liquor stocks rose 0.8%, while the STAR 50 fell 2.2% as sentiment around the AI-chip supply chain stayed weak — robot maker Unitree rebounded 16% while memory-chip maker CXMT dropped 7.8%. Turnover on the two exchanges ran at about 1.45 trillion yuan, down roughly 120 billion from the prior session, with more than 3,100 stocks declining. Coming off its worst week since mid-July — a 3.4% drop — the CSI 300 read Monday's beat as a floor, not a starting gun.Hong Kong was closed for the Chung Yeung holiday, with both northbound and southbound flows suspended until Tuesday. Offshore investors' pricing of the beat waits a day.Commodities reacted mildly. Shanghai copper added 0.29%; Dalian iron ore gained 1.26%; rebar slipped 0.13%. Shanghai gold rose 0.40%, with spot bullion around 107.83 a barrel and WTI dropped 1.2% to $100.20, as traders weighed possible supply increases from exemptions to sanctions on Russian crude.Crypto warmed up with risk appetite, cautiously. Bitcoin briefly dipped below 82,000-83,000 in European hours for a 24-hour gain of about 1% to 1.6%; ether drifted sideways between 2,450. CoinDesk attributed the bounce to a risk-on mix of China data and cheaper oil, but the flows have not confirmed it: spot bitcoin ETFs in the U.S. saw roughly 320 million. The policy backdrop adds its own drag: the Fed, which raised rates by 25 basis points last month, is expected to hold its benchmark at 4.75% to 5% this month.The next checkpoint comes in December, when the Central Economic Work Conference will set the policy line for 2027. Between now and then, whether fourth-quarter retail sales and property data can extend September's repair will decide how markets re-grade this rebound.

Wall Street’s Fear & Greed Index sank to 18 on Friday as the Nasdaq fell 4.5% for the week; traders lost nearly $52 million on leveraged AI and chip-stock bets in 10 minutes on Saturday, when Wall Street was shut. The reading was deep in “Extreme Fear” one day before Black Monday turned 39, according to BeInCrypto. Roughly $38 million of the losses came from bets on rising prices. Unlike stocks, perpetual futures tracking equities trade around the clock and can force-close borrowed positions as prices fall. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell 11.4% for the week, while CoreWeave dropped about 25%; hot inflation data also revived bets on a Federal Reserve rate hike.

France's National Assembly approved Amendment I-3898 on Friday, a measure that could make certain crypto-to-stablecoin swaps taxable starting in 2027. According to NS3.AI, the amendment passed with 38 votes in favor, 37 against and 25 abstentions; if enacted, it would also change how crypto capital gains tax is calculated. Separate proposals to extend exit taxes to certain unrealized crypto gains and require reporting of self-custodial wallet holdings above a threshold remained under consideration for the 2027 Finance Bill as of Monday.

Strategy fell 9.6% on its first full trading day after MSCI proposed excluding companies whose primary assets are holdings rather than operating businesses from its indexes. According to Odaily, Bitcoin News said on X that Strategy holds 848,250 BTC, purchased at an average price of $75,444, and that the holdings remain about $5 billion above cost. Mining companies including MARA also fell despite not facing the index eligibility threat, while risk aversion in Nasdaq trading contributed to some of the declines. MSCI is scheduled to announce its final removal list on November 11. JPMorgan estimates that removing Strategy could trigger about $2.8 billion in passive outflows.

World Liberty Financial’s USD1 stablecoin lost more than $400 million in market capitalization over two weeks as large redemptions took place on Ethereum and BNB Chain. According to Cointelegraph, CoinGecko data showed the token’s market cap at about $4.02 billion on Monday, down from $4.43 billion on Oct. 6, a decline of approximately $401 million, or 9.1%. World Liberty Financial’s proof-of-reserves dashboard separately listed about $4.01 billion in reserves. Blockchain research firm Onchain Benchmark reported nearly $200 million in BNB Chain redemptions from one unidentified address, but said it could not determine who controlled the funds or why they were redeemed. Ethereum recorded $184.60 million in net redemptions across 63 token burns between Oct. 6 and Oct. 15, while BNB Chain saw $200.43 million across 12 burns. Despite the reduced supply, USD1 traded between $0.998 and $1.000 during the period reviewed, with researchers finding no evidence of a sustained depegging event.
On Ethereum, more than 99% of tokens sent for redemption passed through a wallet labeled BitGo, USD1’s current issuer and custodian. On BNB Chain, the unidentified address made transfers in batches of $30 million to $50 million. Transfers between Ethereum and BNB Chain totaled less than $1 million, the report said, suggesting the redeemed supply was not simply moved between the networks. USD1 supply on Solana remained unchanged at about $1.42 billion during the nine days reviewed, with no new issuance offsetting the reductions. Onchain Benchmark said the upcoming change of issuer would test the stablecoin, whose supply depends on decisions by a small number of large holders, while the legal basis for the issuer’s charter is being argued in court. The firm said future supply data would show whether new mints rebuild USD1’s total supply or whether October’s level carries into its new issuer. Between Oct. 6 and Oct. 15, USD1 supply on Ethereum fell 11.45%, compared with declines of 4.93% for USDe, 2.18% for USDC and 0.76% for circulating USDT.

According to the announcement from Binance, its Binance Pick campaign will officially launch on 2026-10-21 (UTC), with Early Bird reservations opening on 2026-10-19. The reservation period runs from 2026-10-19 to 2026-10-20 23:59:59 (UTC), followed by the prediction period from 2026-10-21 00:00:00 to 2026-11-15 23:59:59 (UTC). The prize pool can reach 1,000,000 USDC, with its size tied to the number of users who reserve during Early Bird. Participants can earn Scores by completing tasks that may include campaign sign-up, daily check-ins, referrals, trading, and posting on Square. Eligible users can use Scores to make predictions in available markets; successful predictions increase their Scores. Scores are campaign-only points with no monetary value and cannot be redeemed, transferred, or exchanged for cash. Rewards are divided among three pools: 500,000 USDC for the Season Leaderboard, shared by the top 20,000 participants with more than 0 Season Scores; 400,000 USDC in weekly rewards, or 100,000 USDC per week, for the top 8,000 participants with positive Weekly PnL from predictions; and 100,000 USDC in participation rewards. Participants who do not rank on either leaderboard may qualify for the participation pool by completing at least five check-ins during the season, with a maximum reward of 5 USDC per eligible participant. Task availability may vary by region.

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) added nine crypto-asset service providers (CASPs) to its Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) register, bringing the total to 375. According to ChainCatcher, the additions include MEGE zweite, BingX's Austrian entity; YouHodler's Italian subsidiary; and Santander-owned Openbank Deutschland.

Zcash’s proposed NU7 upgrade would disable spending from Sprout, its oldest privacy pool, leaving holders unable to move those funds on the upgraded network. According to NS3.AI, Sprout held about 22,309 ZEC on Oct. 17, and holders could retain their private keys even if spending is disabled.
Mainnet activation remains undecided, with a final decision planned for Oct. 20 and Nov. 5 set as a conditional target. Recovering funds can require days of scanning, while exiting the pool would expose amounts through public pool accounting.
ZIP 2003 allows for possible future retrieval arrangements but cautions that spending may never be restored.

The XRP Ledger’s fixCleanup3_4_0 package has secured the 29 validator votes needed for approval and is expected to take effect around 09:34 UTC on Oct. 23, fixing code for Ripple’s proposed uncollateralized lending system before it can launch. The package had exactly 29 votes Monday, according to CoinDesk, and is nine days into a two-week countdown; one validator withdrawing support would restart it. The lending and vault amendments have 19 and 21 votes, respectively, and neither has started a countdown, meaning lending could not launch before early November. The patch also closes a loophole that could let certain accounts create tokens despite permission only to destroy them, and revises vault rounding and loan-default rules.

Crypto analyst Michaël van de Poppe says Bitcoin could reach $1 million this cycle, likening it to the late-1990s dot-com boom. An October 17 post cited a chart of five Bitcoin crash bottoms, projecting a conservative bear case near $197,000 by 2030, according to BeInCrypto. Bitcoin was near $81,000 in mid-October 2026, 36% below its $126,080 all-time high reached on October 6, 2025. Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan, Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz, and former BitMEX CEO Arthur Hayes have also floated $1 million targets; Bloomberg Intelligence strategist Mike McGlone has said Bitcoin could instead fall to $10,000. Van de Poppe's scenario includes a potential parabolic rise and 80% correction, but the forecasts remain speculative.

BitMine added 12,535 ETH last week, bringing its holdings to 6,041,481 ETH as of October 18, or about 4.9% of the total ETH supply. According to PANews, citing a PR Newswire report, the company held about $15.1 billion in cryptocurrency, cash and other investment assets, including $582 million in cash and marketable securities, 215 BTC, a $180 million equity stake in Beast Industries and a $74 million investment in Eightco Holdings (ORBS). BitMine had staked 5,067,309 ETH.

Binance announced on X that 21 users have won its writing contest after two rounds of manual screening and a final evaluation by two AI models. Entries were scored across five areas: relevance to the theme, creativity and memorability, accuracy of brand expression, completeness and quality, and originality and risk control. Scores were averaged and ranked to determine the results.
The “Moon Rising Over the Sea” category has eight winners, each receiving 150 U: @zhoguwn2782184, @Ai86666, @Naive_BNB, @hanhanbtc, @0x_MrFive, @ack666, @Xiaoyu_184CM and @HARD__BOY897. The “Together Under the Same Moon, Though Far Apart” category also has eight winners, each receiving 150 U: @Crypto777888, @rtsky7, @Gavin_Cryptoo, @dashubtc, @timliu92, @unefois, @StayingAtHome and @QuantumCat_. The announcement identifies the latter three entries as Binance Square content.
Five users received the creative award of co-branded shoes: @MantaSweetheart, @BitcoinHoardingLord, @jiaxun53716338, @0xawansmith and @Doll3heart_. The announcement identifies the first two entries as Binance Square content. Winners were asked to send their UID by direct message or provide a mailing address to receive their prizes by October 21 at 8:00 PM (UTC+8).

Japan’s Financial Services Agency has published minutes from the first meeting of its Forum on On-Chain Finance in the AI Era, held on September 30. According to Foresight News, the forum is chaired by Japan’s Minister of State for Financial Services and includes the Digital Agency, Ministry of Finance, Bank of Japan and Japanese Bankers Association. It plans to release an interim report and a public-private cooperation roadmap early next year.
The minutes say the Ministry of Finance will convene an expert study group in October to examine putting government bonds on-chain. The Financial Services Agency and the ministry will develop a policy dialogue framework for public- and private-sector participants in Asia and hold an “Asia Day 2027” meeting in February.
The Digital Agency will study the technical use of stablecoins and tokenized deposits to distribute public funds, including restricting subsidies to specific purposes such as child-rearing and food. The Bank of Japan is developing a distributed ledger technology connectivity sandbox to test the use of its current account deposits for on-chain settlement. The Japanese Bankers Association has also established a study group to discuss next-generation interbank settlement infrastructure.

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) will open commercial access to a tokenization service covering approximately $30 trillion in assets this month. According to NS3.AI, the service will initially run only on the closed platforms Canton and Besu, with 25 liquid instruments available.
Securities-to-token conversions will be available to two types of participants between 2:00 and 18:00 ET, while institutions will be able to transfer tokens between wallets around the clock. Stellar (XLM) has been named a 2027 launch partner, with the original first-half 2027 timeline unchanged.

Hyperliquid bought and burned 11,340 HYPE tokens over the past 24 hours at an average price of $78.55 per token. According to BlockBeats On-chain Detection, the burn brings the cumulative total to 49.63 million HYPE, equal to 4.96% of the token’s 1 billion maximum supply. OnchainLens monitored the activity on October 18.

Trader Killa says Bitcoin swept the prior week’s low near $80,000, with longs bearing the brunt, and could turn to targeting shorts next week. According to ChainCatcher, Killa said BTC fell from $87,000 to the $80,000 range last week before rebounding 50%; this week, its price surged on Monday but met persistent resistance before moving below the prior week’s low.
Killa said traders should watch for another sweep of this week’s low at $79,800, which could present a buying opportunity. If Bitcoin does not revisit the low, the $83,600 area will be key: failure to break above it would leave the market in a range-bound capitulation phase, while a successful move above it could lead to an upside breakout. Killa expects next week’s weekly open to push higher and force late short sellers to close positions. In the worst-case scenario for bulls, BTC could dip into the $76,000-$78,000 range. Killa said he does not expect an extreme sweep to $74,000.

Wall Street’s use of blockchain is expanding beyond creating digital versions of stocks, bonds and money-market funds. According to Bloomberg, the broader goal is to change how those assets move through the financial system.

According to the announcement from Binance, the exchange has launched a Word of the Day (WOTD) game themed around “Building Agent Rails,” with a total of 10,000 USDC in rewards. The activity runs from 2026-10-19 01:55 (UTC) to 2026-10-25 23:59 (UTC). Eligible users may play up to two games per day. Users who submit at least five correct answers during the activity period can share a 3,000 USDC reward pool, with each user’s allocation based on their correct answers as a proportion of all eligible users’ correct answers. Players who also complete at least $50 equivalent in cumulative non-zero-fee trading volume during the activity period can share an additional 7,000 USDC pool. Eligible trading activity includes Spot, Convert, TradFi, bStocks, or Futures. Rewards from the second pool are also based on users’ proportion of correct answers and are capped at 5 USDC per user. Binance said rewards will be distributed directly to users’ Rewards Hub by 2026-11-08 23:59 (UTC). Users can access a second daily game after completing the first by sharing the featured link; the second game unlocks when a logged-in user clicks the link.

Clearpool has published its v4.0 protocol white paper, outlining an expansion to the XRP Ledger and a 1:1 migration of CPOOL to CLEAR. According to PANews, the expansion will be developed with Ripple and Cicada Partners, with settlements made in the regulated stablecoin RLUSD. Clearpool’s institutional credit market currently operates across six EVM-compatible networks. CLEAR will have a total supply of 1.429 billion tokens, with 1.125 billion, or 78.75%, circulating at migration. The migration and XRPL expansion passed a Snapshot vote with 97.16% support. Since launching in 2021, the protocol has issued about $965 million in loans to borrowers including Jane Street, Flow Traders, and Wintermute. Half of protocol fees will be used to buy back CLEAR on the open market and permanently burn the tokens. The XRPL product is being prepared for testing on Devnet.

South Korea faces calls to postpone its planned cryptocurrency tax, potentially moving its start date to 2029. According to NS3.AI, senior finance officials are reportedly set to meet major crypto exchanges on Tuesday ahead of the tax’s scheduled implementation in January. Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker Park Min-gyu introduced a bill on Friday linking the tax’s start to international crypto data sharing. An exchange official told Yonhap that unresolved transaction rules and limited time to prepare infrastructure support postponement.

Galxe said most of its core services have moved to Gravity L1 as the Gravity Alpha mainnet is gradually shut down. According to Foresight News, users with G staking positions must initiate unstaking by Oct. 26 at 11:00, while Smart Savings users must manually migrate or withdraw their funds by then; both processes have a seven-day waiting period. The G staking page will be taken offline at the deadline. Funds left in Smart Savings after the deadline will be automatically moved to Smart Balance and can no longer be withdrawn through Smart Savings.
Gravity Alpha is scheduled to stop operating on Nov. 1, after which assets remaining on the network will no longer be transferable. Developers must migrate dApps, bots, and scripts deployed on the Alpha mainnet to Gravity L1.

AltLayer (ALT) is scheduled to unlock approximately 246.59 million tokens, worth about $2.13 million, at 8:00 AM (UTC+8) on October 26. According to ChainCatcher, the figures are based on token-unlock data from Web3 asset data platform RootData.

PayFi gained 1.12% over 24 hours on October 19, while the RWA and DePIN sectors declined. According to NS3.AI, SoSoValue data showed Bitcoin rose 0.89% and moved above $82,000 during the same period. RWA fell 1.32%, and DePIN dropped 1.57%.

CME plans to launch Bitcoin Cash and Uniswap futures on October 19, bringing its single-asset crypto futures lineup to 11. According to NS3.AI, both products will offer standard and micro contracts, and their product pages are labeled “pending regulatory review.” If Uniswap futures trade for a full six months as scheduled, they would meet an SEC listing requirement and provide a potential path for Bitwise’s pending spot Uniswap ETF.

Three men were sentenced to up to six years in prison after breaking into a Bristol home on May 15, assaulting a resident and demanding cryptocurrency. According to Odaily, the victim suffered a head injury and received hospital treatment, while the attackers left without obtaining any crypto.
Terroll Paul, Mohamed Samagassi and Pierre Madzou each admitted aggravated burglary and were sentenced at Bristol Crown Court on October 15. Paul received a six-year sentence, Madzou was sentenced to five and a half years, and Samagassi received five years. The victim’s underage sister called police, who arrested the men at the scene.
Police did not disclose how much cryptocurrency the men demanded. The case is an example of a “wrench attack,” in which criminals use violence or threats to force crypto holders to hand over digital assets. CertiK data showed such attacks caused $124 million in global losses in the first half of 2026, a 12-fold increase from the same period a year earlier.

Circle said USDC generated just 7 cents in net profit for every dollar of revenue in the first half of 2026. According to Odaily, Circle Chief Business Officer Kash Razzaghi wrote in a blog post published October 16 that the company recorded about $1.4 billion in revenue and reserve income during the period, with $819 million allocated to distribution partners and transaction costs—about 59 cents per dollar of revenue.
Circle said the relatively low revenue-retention rate reflects a sustainable business model. It also said competitors’ higher revenue-sharing rates indicate they save costs on underlying infrastructure.
Circle has more than 55 licenses and works with over 25 banks, while more than 150 partners participate in the USDC economy’s revenue-sharing. USDC’s on-chain transaction volume exceeded $36 trillion in the first half of 2026. In June 2026, USDC accounted for 77% of global stablecoin trading volume, up from 60% a year earlier.
Open USD launched in June 2026 with free minting and redemption, and directs reserve income to participants.

According to Kabutan, Korea Herald and UDN Money, Japanese stocks fell on Monday after U.S. tech weakness. The Nikkei 225 opened 504.73 points lower at 64,819.56, extended losses to more than 1,400 points at one point, then pared declines in the afternoon to close at 64,916.70, down 407.59 points. The broader TOPIX ended slightly higher. Tokyo Electron fell 2.63% and was the biggest drag on the Nikkei, while Advantest slipped 0.23%.
Seoul's KOSPI reversed an opening drop of 3.17% to close up 99.96 points, or 1.76%, at 5,768.01, after hitting a low of 5,488.41. Institutions bought a net 574.66 billion won of shares, while foreign and retail investors sold a net 37.87 billion won and 1.09 trillion won, respectively. Samsung Electronics rose 1.16% to 218,000 won, SK hynix gained 0.39% to 1.28 million won and Hyundai Motor climbed 4.49% to 326,000 won. IBK Securities said some investors bought large-cap stocks as bargains after sharp declines in recent weeks, lifting the index into positive territory.
Hong Kong's stock market was closed on Monday for the day following the Chung Yeung Festival holiday and will resume trading on Tuesday, Oct. 20.
Taiwan's TAIEX closed at 46,822.08, down 289.18 points, or 0.61%, after falling as much as 941.26 points to a low of 46,170. Turnover was NT$825.1 billion. TSMC recovered late to close flat at NT$2,420, while MediaTek fell 1.06% and Hon Hai declined 1.84%. The three major institutional investors were net sellers of NT$89.9 billion.
In mainland China, A-shares were mixed. The Shanghai Composite closed at 3,730.92, up 0.39%, the Shenzhen Component rose 0.13% to 11,817.42 and the ChiNext Index fell 0.94% to 2,746.29. Combined Shanghai and Shenzhen turnover was 1.44 trillion yuan.

Glassnode said weekend selling hit altcoins as fear in stock markets spilled over into crypto. According to Foresight News, data showed typical altcoins fell more than 5% over the weekend, potentially marking their largest weekend decline since April.

Investor Mark Moss said Bitcoin could reach $1 million by 2030 if it captures a growing share of global wealth. According to NS3.AI, Moss estimates that a 1.5% share of competing store-of-value markets could give Bitcoin a $21 trillion market capitalization, or almost $1 million per coin. He also projected that Bitcoin could reach $43 million by 2050 with 15% market penetration. These projections depend on speculative adoption assumptions; Moss cited growing institutional adoption, Bitcoin’s fixed supply and rising government debt as factors supporting long-term appreciation.

A whale made a single $58,000 purchase of Real Madrid shares in Polymarket’s Real Madrid vs. Sevilla market, which currently implies a 79.65% win probability for Real Madrid. According to ChainCatcher, the probability is based on the latest trading price.