Track market-moving stories before they get noisy

THEO, which operates on the Base network, experienced one of its sharpest declines in history following suspicious token mining. According to data shared by blockchain security company PeckShield, the attacker generated 19 million THEO on the Base network.

The generated tokens were then sold on the market, converting them into 700.8 ETH. At the prices during the transaction, the total value of the Ethereum was estimated to be approximately $1.76 million. It was reported that the attacker transferred the obtained ETH from the Base network to the Ethereum mainnet.

Following the selling pressure, the price of THEO has fallen by approximately 92% in the last 24 hours. The influx of permissionless tokens into circulation has led to a rapid dilution of existing investors’ assets and a significant drain on market liquidity.

While initial data suggests the incident was an attack, it is not yet clear which contract the vulnerability originated from, whether private keys were compromised, and whether the total loss is limited to $1.76 million.

The chart shows the price drop of THEO. *This is not investment advice.

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Bitcoin has remained range-bound in the low-to-mid $82,000s to $83,000s into mid-October 2026, trading with limited directional conviction after failing to deliver the stronger seasonal advances historically associated with the month.

Daily closes have clustered near these levels following a brief dip toward the low $81,000s earlier in the period, while broader market capitalization stayed near $1.68 trillion and 24-hour volumes fluctuated in the tens of billions.

On-chain trackers highlighted a notable transfer of roughly 4,582 BTC, valued near $378 million, from a wallet that had been largely dormant for years. The address originally received the coins in March 2020 when they were worth about $41 million.

The funds moved to multiple recipient addresses without an immediately confirmed exchange deposit, consistent with internal reallocation rather than an outright market sale.

Similar long-dormant movements earlier in the month drew comparable attention but did not produce sustained selling pressure.

Ethereum faces a potential reduction in steady institutional demand. BitMine chairman Tom Lee stated at TOKEN2049 that the firm intends to halt further accumulation once its holdings reach 5 percent of circulating supply.

With more than 6 million ETH already held—approximately 4.9 percent of the total and valued near $15 billion—the company needs only about 100,000 additional tokens to hit the threshold.

Lee noted the pace of accumulation had exceeded internal expectations despite a challenging market backdrop.

Market observers have flagged the impending end of weekly purchases as a possible source of softer bid support for ETH, which has underperformed Bitcoin in recent sessions.

XRP traded near $1.37 as Evernorth, the newly public vehicle holding roughly 473 million tokens, began trading on Nasdaq under the ticker XRPN following its SPAC combination.

A portion of the treasury—about 84 million XRP acquired for roughly $214 million at an average near $2.54—now sits approximately 46 percent underwater at current prices.

Most of the remaining holdings originated from Ripple-linked contributions rather than open-market purchases.

The share price itself has been volatile, reflecting both the thin post-redemption float and the decline in XRP from earlier levels.

Despite elevated volatility across digital assets, the Solana ecosystem continues to post constructive on-chain metrics.

September data showed strong DEX volumes, rising stablecoin supply above $17 billion at peaks, substantial tokenized-equity activity, and sustained network throughput following capacity upgrades.

Application revenue and real-world asset issuance have remained resilient even as pure memecoin volumes moderated relative to prior peaks.

Against this backdrop, Nasdaq-listed SkyAI has recently disclosed it had sold approximately half its SOL treasury—around one million tokens—to fund a proposed cash tender offer of up to $201 million.

The company intends to repurchase as much as 95 percent of eligible shares and warrants at $3 each, conditional on sufficient participation and SOL remaining above $100 during the offer window, while also rejecting an all-stock proposal from Forward Industries.

Turning to other large-cap assets, BNB has hovered in the mid-$740s to low-$750s, testing the lower boundary of an analyst-outlined October channel near $755.

Technical commentary has been mixed: some frameworks flag a potential broadening-wedge risk toward the mid-$500s if support fails, while others still project a path toward the $800 area if the channel holds and the recent quarterly burn narrative supports sentiment.

BNB Chain has also faced competitive pressure in tokenized-stock volumes as activity shifted toward higher-throughput networks.

Cardano’s ADA has traded near $0.23–$0.25 after pulling back from recent highs, underperforming the broader market on several sessions.

Analysts point to technical breakdowns below short-term moving averages and reduced institutional flows, though longer-term support near the 200-day average and ongoing governance and partnership activity (including research initiatives) provide a floor.

Targets in the high $0.20s remain discussed if buyers defend the current zone, but open interest has softened.

Hyperliquid’s HYPE has pulled back from its September peak near $98 toward the low-to-mid $80s amid elevated selling volume and an upcoming token unlock.

The protocol continues to generate meaningful fee revenue that funds buybacks and burns, supporting the longer-term valuation case around its perpetual futures and expanding product suite.

Near-term technicals show the token below key moving averages, with $80–$85 acting as immediate support and $90-plus required to re-establish bullish momentum.

Zcash has corrected from recent multi-month highs near $1,300 toward the low $1,100s–$1,200s, reflecting profit-taking after a strong year-to-date advance that lifted it into the top-ten rankings by market capitalization (excluding stablecoins).

Privacy-focused demand and ETF-related filings have underpinned the longer-term narrative, though short-term momentum indicators have turned softer.

Tron continues to serve as a primary settlement rail for USDT, holding roughly half of circulating Tether supply and adding billions in stablecoin balances during the third quarter.

The network’s low-cost, high-throughput design for dollar transfers remains a structural advantage even as other chains compete for payment and DeFi flows.

Stablecoin market capitalization has approached or exceeded $300 billion. Tether’s USDT retains dominant share near 60–61 percent, while Circle’s USDC holds roughly 24 percent.

Combined, the two account for the large majority of supply.

Growth has been uneven across chains, with Tron and select Layer-2 and high-performance networks capturing incremental issuance while Ethereum’s share has moderated.

Regulatory developments around yield-bearing and payment-focused stables continue to shape issuance patterns and holder behavior.

Overall, Bitcoin’s tight range and selective on-chain activity set a cautious tone, while ecosystem-specific developments in Ethereum, XRP, and Solana illustrate divergent treasury and adoption dynamics. Analyst views remain split between technical support levels and the impact of reduced buying programs or unlock schedules across several large-cap tokens.

Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.

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Interactive Brokers launches Ethereum staking service, powered by ZeroHash.

Interactive Brokers has launched cryptocurrency staking for eligible clients, starting with Ethereum, as the brokerage continues to expand its digital asset offering.

The service is provided by zerohash and allows eligible Interactive Brokers LLC clients to stake ETH through a dashboard in the broker’s Client Portal, according to an announcement Tuesday.

Clients can submit staking and unstaking requests and track pending activity through the dashboard. Rewards, when earned, are credited as additional staked cryptocurrency and can compound while the position remains staked.

“Similar to how our Stock Yield Enhancement Program allows clients to earn additional income on shares they own, staking gives clients an opportunity to earn rewards on the cryptocurrency they own,” Interactive Brokers CEO Milan Galik said. “We want clients to earn more from the assets they hold.”

The launch follows a series of additions to the broker’s crypto services, including expanded token support, transfers to external wallets and stablecoin funding.

In July, Interactive Brokers added nine tokens through zerohash and three through Paxos, with some assets available through both providers. The expansion brought its zerohash trading lineup to 20 digital assets, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, XRP and NEAR.

The brokerage first launched direct cryptocurrency trading in September 2021, initially offering Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash through Paxos. Its recent announcements expand that existing business into more assets and services.

Interactive Brokers also introduced USDC account funding in January. Its stablecoin services now support USDC, Ripple’s RLUSD and PayPal’s PYUSD for eligible clients, alongside transfers of supported crypto assets to and from external wallets.

The staking rollout was signaled in June, when zerohash announced staking infrastructure for brokerages, banks and fintech platforms. Galik said at the time that Interactive Brokers planned to offer staking alongside its existing investment products.

Together, the additions show how the brokerage is building crypto into its broader investment platform. Clients can trade digital assets alongside stocks, options, futures, bonds and funds, while gaining access to services previously associated mainly with dedicated crypto platforms.

Interactive Brokers said product availability varies by affiliate and country of residence. At launch, its staking service is available to eligible Interactive Brokers LLC clients and supports Ethereum.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Estefano Gomez. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Table of contents

Binance’s share of Ethereum futures open interest has climbed to nearly 49% across major centralized exchanges, the highest level since 2023, according to an analysis by CryptoQuant contributor Darkfost. The reading arrives even as Ether’s price has fallen roughly 10%, from about $2,775 in late September to around $2,500, and it shows leveraged traders have not walked away from the asset despite a sharp liquidation event.

In a post published on X on October 12, Darkfost traced how Binance’s notional open interest lost about $600 million during the correction, while open interest measured in Ether returned to roughly 2.46 million ETH, back to its late-September level. “Despite the correction, the amount of ETH committed to Binance futures has therefore not declined,” he wrote.

What the Open Interest Data Shows The most notable figure is the market-share reading. Binance now accounts for nearly 49% of Ether open interest among the major centralized exchanges tracked by CryptoQuant, its highest share since 2023. In other words, close to one out of every two ETH represented in open futures positions on those venues now sits on Binance derivatives.

That concentration built up during a period of forced deleveraging. Between October 8 and 9, about $345 million in Ether long positions were liquidated within 24 hours as the market pulled back. After the flush, however, traders rebuilt exposure: Binance’s open interest in ETH terms recovered to around 2.46 million ETH, matching the level seen at the end of September.

Why Dollar Open Interest Fell While Ether Open Interest Held The two gauges appear to contradict each other because they are measured in different units. A notional open-interest figure is priced in dollars, so a falling Ether price compresses it even when the number of outstanding contracts stays flat. Binance’s dollar-denominated open interest fell by about $600 million over the same stretch, but that decline partly reflects the slide from about $2,775 to around $2,500 rather than an equivalent drop in the Ether actually committed to futures.

Measured in Ether instead, the unwind looks different. The amount of ETH deployed in Binance’s futures market did not meaningfully shrink, and its share of the market rose to a multi-year high. That separation shows the correction was led by liquidations and price, not by traders voluntarily closing positions at scale.

Concentration on One Venue Is the Risk Nearly half of tracked Ether futures open interest sitting on a single exchange concentrates both liquidity and risk. A venue-level outage, margin change, or forced unwinding at Binance would now ripple through a larger portion of the Ether derivatives market than at any point in the past three years. The concentration also persists while Binance’s European licensing status remains unresolved: Darkfost flagged the exchange’s MiCA license troubles, reached even as Greece was reported to be preparing to grant it a license.

The share has limits. It measures Binance against the major centralized exchanges CryptoQuant tracks, not against every venue or the decentralized derivatives market, so it is a snapshot of concentration within one cohort rather than a claim that Binance controls half of all Ether derivatives activity. A high share is also not evidence of manipulation; it can simply reflect where traders choose to keep their leverage. The reading comes as Binance moves to shut down its mining pool and cloud mining services in November, a reminder that the exchange is restructuring parts of its business even as its futures franchise grows.

What to Watch Next The next observable signals are whether Binance’s Ether open interest stays near 2.46 million ETH or unwinds, and whether another liquidation event follows if the price keeps sliding. On the institutional side, US-listed Ether ETFs have posted nine straight sessions of outflows, a contrast worth tracking against the resilience of leveraged futures demand. The status of Binance’s MiCA authorization in Europe is a separate thread: a license grant would remove one lingering overhang on the venue that now anchors the largest slice of tracked Ether futures interest. For now, the data shows leverage concentrating rather than leaving, which raises the stakes of the next sharp move in either direction.

AUTHOR

Entrepreneur and freelance writer based in Nakuru, Kenya. I cover cryptocurrency, the Blockchain technology, and financial topics. It’s my joy to transform the simplest phrases in a way they reach a reader’s heart to help them discover how crypto is disrupting the world as we have known it. I believe in transforming the world, one word at a time.

Interactive Brokers, which manages over $900 billion in clients’ assets, has launched crypto staking services in partnership with Zerohash. The service will start with Ethereum staking and expand the firm’s crypto offering, which already includes trading in up to 20 assets.

Interactive Brokers Rolls Out Ethereum Staking For Its Clients
In a press release, the brokerage platform announced that it has launched crypto staking for eligible clients and that Zerohash will provide the staking services. This will enable customers to earn rewards on their crypto holdings through staking.

Interactive Brokers further revealed that it will first launch Ethereum staking for its clients. “At launch, eligible Interactive Brokers LLC clients can stake Ethereum through the Staking Dashboard in IBKR’s Client Portal, where they can submit stake or unstake requests and monitor pending activity,” the firm said.

This launch follows the broker’s earlier crypto rollouts. Earlier this year, Interactive Brokers launched Bitcoin and Ethereum futures trading in partnership with Coinbase Derivatives. Meanwhile, it already supports trading for 20 crypto assets.

Commenting on the launch of its staking services, the firm’s CEO Milan Galik noted that it was similar to the Stock Yield Enhancement Program, which allows customers to earn extra income on the shares they own. “We want clients to earn more from the assets they hold,” he added.

IBKR Stock Falls
The broker’s stock, IBKR, is down on the day amid the launch of its Ethereum staking service. The stock is trading at around $87, down over 1%, according to TradingView data. The stock is also down over the past week and down 4% in the past month.

Source: TradingView
However, the Interactive Brokers stock is still up over 32% year-to-date (YTD). Beyond expanding its crypto offerings, the broker has also entered the prediction markets industry, tapping into the growth the likes of Kalshi and Polymarket have recorded this year.

In May, the broker launched its unified prediction markets platform, which integrates Kalshi, CME, and ForecastEx’s markets. The platform aggregates similar contracts from all connected prediction-market platforms into a single searchable interface, providing users with the best price.

For more on staking, check out the Best Crypto Staking Platforms

Ethereum’s validator set is in the middle of a quiet renovation. According to an update tied to Lido, staked ETH sitting on 0x02 validators has now reached 40%.

The move came from two sources. Around 1.8 million ETH migrated over from older 0x01 validators, and total ETH staked on 0x02 validators rose by 2.8 million.

What changed, and why validators are moving
Ethereum’s Pectra hard fork in May 2025 changed the rules through EIP-7251. Validators using the newer 0x02 type can now carry an effective balance of up to 2,048 ETH. Bigger stakes fit into one validator, and rewards can compound instead of stalling at a fixed ceiling.

Lido, Ethereum’s leading liquid staking protocol, has leaned into this hard. Its Curated Module v2, or CMv2, launched on July 27, 2026. The plan is to consolidate over 8 million ETH, worth approximately $16 billion at the time, from more than 265,000 legacy validators into an estimated 4,000 active 0x02 validators.

Those 8 million ETH represent around 20% of all staked ETH. Collapsing 265,000 validators into roughly 4,000 is the staking equivalent of merging a sprawling office park into a single tower.

The numbers behind the shift
The consolidation has already moved the needle on Lido’s own footprint. Its share of staked ETH on 0x02 validators climbed from approximately 32% to around 52%, according to the research findings.

As of late October 2026, the share of all staked ETH on 0x02 validators approached 50%. The 32 ETH validator is slowly becoming a legacy format.

Once consolidation wraps up, the network is expected to drop from an estimated 880,000 validators to approximately 628,000. The research points to an expected reduction of about 29% in consensus attestation traffic per epoch.

Bonds, accountability and what comes next
CMv2 also introduces a bonding requirement for curated operators. Under the new module, operators must lock up ETH as collateral. That bond can be seized for violations such as slashing or downtime.

Lido is also building a Community Staking Module, or CSM, slated for mainnet in Q4 2026. The goal is to allow permissionless operator participation, opening the door to node runners who are not part of Lido’s curated set.

What this means for Ethereum and stakers
For the Ethereum network, shrinking the validator set by about one-third should ease network load, reduce attestation traffic and cut operational overhead. For stakers, with a 2,048 ETH ceiling, rewards can compound inside a single validator rather than stalling at the old 32 ETH cap.

Lido already holds a large share of staked ETH, and its share of 0x02 stake has reportedly jumped to around 52%. The bonding system and the upcoming Community Staking Module are Lido’s answer to concentration concerns. A permissionless module, if it ships as slated in Q4 2026, could broaden who actually operates the infrastructure.

The key metrics to track from here are the network-wide 0x02 share as it climbs toward and potentially past 50%, the total validator count as it moves from roughly 880,000 toward the projected 628,000, and whether CSM lands on schedule in Q4 2026.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Estefano Gomez. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Sberbank, Russia's largest bank, has received approval to offer Bitcoin, Ethereum, and USDT transactions.

Sberbank, Russia’s largest bank, has received approval from the Central Bank of Russia to offer cryptocurrency trading services. The bank is reportedly beginning to test Bitcoin, Ethereum, and USDT transactions within its mobile application.

Sberbank reportedly plans to open cryptocurrency transactions to all its customers starting December 1st. This will allow users to access supported digital assets through the bank’s app without having to send funds to a separate cryptocurrency exchange.

In early October, Sberbank was also added to the list of digital custodians responsible for maintaining records of cryptocurrency assets and digital rights.

The bank stated that the authorizations granted will enable the provision of cryptocurrency services through the banking platforms that customers currently use.

Sberbank has announced plans to launch its first cryptocurrency products on December 1, 2026.

Besides Sberbank, eight other companies are on the list of authorized cryptocurrency trading platforms. These include VTB and T-Bank, two of Russia’s major banks, as well as T-Invest Lab, which operates within the same group.

The law on digital currencies and digital rights, which came into effect in Russia on September 1, 2026, created a comprehensive legal framework for cryptocurrency transactions in the country.

According to the new regulation, cryptocurrency transactions can be carried out through existing exchanges, brokerage firms, and custody service providers. In addition, specially authorized cryptocurrency exchanges and digital custody organizations can also operate.

While digital assets can be bought and sold through cryptocurrency exchanges, digital custody institutions ensure that the rights to these assets are registered.

*This is not investment advice.

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Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.

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The Shiba Inu Tokens Vitalik Never Asked For Are Funding a COVID Vaccine Trial

Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.

Disclosure. PANews may publish sponsored content, partner content, advertisements, affiliate links, event promotions, and market commentary involving Web3 projects, service providers, or financial products. PANews personnel, contributors, or affiliates may hold digital assets or other interests related to covered topics. See our Terms of Service.

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7h05 ▪
7
min read ▪ by
Ariela R.

Summarize this article with:

In the week ending October 11, 2023, BitMine Immersion Technologies (NYSE: BMNR) purchased 12,532 ETH for an indicative value of 31.9 million dollars. However, the releases from October 5 and 12 reveal a very different reality: the total value of the company’s crypto assets, cash, and strategic holdings dropped from 17.4 to 16.2 billion dollars in one week. This development illustrates a key distinction: accumulating Ethereum crypto-assets does not guarantee an increase in portfolio value.

In brief

BitMine purchased 12,532 ETH in the week ending October 11, 2026, at a reference valuation of $2,544 per ETH.
Its reserves reach 6,028,946 ETH, or 4.9% of a supply estimated at 122.1 million ETH.
The announced total value of its crypto assets, cash, and holdings falls from $17.4B to $16.2B in one week.
At constant supply, 76,054 ETH theoretically separate BitMine from the 5% threshold, according to our calculations.
The company has staked 5,067,309 ETH and estimates annualized revenues of $336M, based on a recent yield of 2.61%.

How many ETH does BitMine lack to reach 5% of the global Ethereum supply?
As of October 11, 2026, BitMine held 6,028,946 ETH. This represents 4.9% of the supply estimated at 122.1 million tokens, according to its press release on October 12. At constant quantity, the threshold corresponds to 6,105,000 ETH. Hence, the company theoretically lacks 76,054 ETH.

However, this calculation differs from Tom Lee’s rounded estimate. In his monthly message on October 7, the president of BitMine mentioned about 100,000 additional ETH before the end of the Ethereum accumulation phase. The gap can be explained notably by :

the rounding used by the executive ;
the evolution of crypto holdings between the two dates.

Based on an ETH price of $2,544, the 76,054 missing tokens would represent about $193.4 million. However, this is an estimate based on the reference price used by BitMine, not the guaranteed future cost of crypto acquisitions.

The company claims to have purchased Ethereum every week since launching its cash strategy on June 30, 2025. According to it, the program has thus been realized to 99%. In its October message, Tom Lee even indicates that BitMine is approaching the end of this Ethereum accumulation phase. The exact timing of the last purchase is, however, not established.

Why does BitMine lose $1.2 billion in valuation despite its crypto purchases?
The total value of BitMine’s crypto assets, cash, and strategic holdings declined from 17.4 billion dollars on October 4 to 16.2 billion dollars on October 11, 2026. The decrease thus amounts to 1.2 billion dollars, or about 6.9% in one week.

The main explanation lies in the value of Ethereum. The reference price used by BitMine actually fell from $2,726 on October 4 to $2,544 on October 11. This represents a decline of about 6.7%. This drop occurs despite the purchase of an additional 12,532 ETH.

Other holdings also impacted the valuation. BitMine notably values its stake in Eightco Holdings at 85 million dollars on October 11, compared to 117 million dollars a week earlier. The company also holds a declared stake of 180 million dollars in Beast Industries. Its cash and marketable securities stand at 612 million dollars, compared to 643 million dollars on October 4.

IndicatorOctober 4, 2026October 11, 2026ETH held6,016,4146,028,946Reference price of ETH$2,726$2,544Cash and marketable securities$643M$612MParticipation in Eightco$117M$85MTotal declared assets, cash, and holdings$17.4B$16.2BSource: BitMine press releases from October 5 and 12, 2026. The values are those declared by the company at the indicated reference dates.
Ethereum purchases slow down as the 5% threshold approaches
BitMine bought 53,501 ETH in the week ending August 30, 2026, compared to only 12,532 ETH in the week ending October 11. According to our calculations, the decline reaches about 76.6% over six weeks.

This comparison, however, does not imply that the company stopped accumulating. It declared that it has continued its purchases every week since launching its “Alchemy of 5%” program. The slowdown also seems consistent with the proximity of the announced goal. However, it is not sufficient to prove that Ethereum purchases will stop immediately after the next publication.

Release dateETH bought during periodTotal heldAugust 31, 202653,5015,901,112September 8, 202628,0865,929,198September 14, 202627,1805,956,378September 28, 202644,924 over two weeks6,001,302October 5, 202615,1126,016,414October 12, 202612,5326,028,946Sources: Weekly BitMine releases published on PR Newswire. The periods covered are not all identical, notably that of September 28, which covers two weeks.
Tom Lee presents the strategy as a means to accumulate a significant share of the Ethereum supply before a possible new bullish phase. This interpretation obviously belongs to BitMine’s management. It neither proves that the Ethereum price will rise nor that BMNR’s stock will evolve in the same proportions.

The accumulation of most of our 6 million ETH took place during a bear market, and as the company approaches its 5% ETH accumulation target, we believe it is well positioned heading into the next bull market.

Ethereum staking represents 84% of BitMine’s reserves
As of October 11, BitMine declared to have staked 5,067,309 ETH in staking. This represents about 84% of its 6,028,946 ETH. At the reference price of $2,544, this amount represented about 12.9 billion dollars.

That’s not all! BitMine also estimates its annualized staking revenues at 336 million dollars, based on an annualized yield of 2.61% calculated from the last seven days. At full scale, the company projects annualized revenues of 400 million dollars if its holdings were fully staked by MAVAN and its partners.

One thing is certain: BitMine seems to be approaching the end of its “Alchemy of 5%” program. Expected around October 19 (if the publication pace continues), the next weekly update will allow verification of the volume of new purchases and the valuation retained for Ethereum. Story to follow…

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Ariela R.

My name is Ariela, and I am 31 years old. I have been working in the field of web writing for 7 years now. I only discovered trading and cryptocurrency a few years ago, but it is a universe that greatly interests me. The topics covered on the platform allow me to learn more. A singer in my spare time, I also cultivate a great passion for music and reading (and animals!)

DISCLAIMER

The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this article belong solely to the author, and should not be taken as investment advice. Do your own research before taking any investment decisions.

Ethereum’s Blur Announces Frontend Shutdown on Nov 12, BLUR Crashes more than 30%

Top Ethereum (ETH) bull and co-founder of Fundstrat Tom Lee has issued a very unusual bearish alert for the second-largest crypto. 

According to his latest post on X, Lee sounded an alarm about the potential negative impact of the dramatic stock market drop in South Korea on the crypto market, which may trigger more ETH sell-offs. 

"This major decline in Korean equities is likely spilling over into crypto," Lee wrote. Lee expressed serious concern about South Korean brokerages' margin liquidations. He also mentioned the fact that South Korean investors hold a large share of crypto, and the crypto asset market is vulnerable to financial contagion. "Short-term pain," he continued, and highlighted ETH. 

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Lee issued the bearish alert at a time when South Korea's benchmark KOSPI dropped over 6% on Tuesday, Oct. 13 due to the massive sell-off in technology and semiconductor stocks. The stock market crash was so severe that the Korea Exchange had to take emergency market stabilization measures.

What's happening in South Korea?The South Korean stock market has been under pressure due to growing concerns about the artificial intelligence boom and the competitiveness of major South Korean semiconductor companies. 

The massive stock market sell-off has mainly affected two of the most influential Korean stock market companies: Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix. 

It was reported that Chinese memory chip maker ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) made considerable progress in terms of semiconductor technology. That is why there are concerns about growing competition from China that could negatively impact memory chip prices and profit margins. 

Notably, U.S. semiconductor stocks also plunged. The last session saw a significant drop of 2.67% for the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index. 

Korea Exchange triggered the so-called sell-side sidecar at approximately 9:48 a.m. local time due to a drop of over 5% in KOSPI 200 futures. However, the intervention could not prevent a wider sell-off.

Blur will retire its trading website on November 12, leaving its marketplace contracts on Ethereum while its Blend lending service stops matching new loans. Its exit from the interface business follows the closures or contraction of several NFT venues. The distinction between an NFT, the contract that transfers it and the website through which a holder can manage it now matters more than the industry’s old volume rankings.

Summary

Blur’s website will close on November 12, 2026, while its Ethereum marketplace contracts remain operational. Blend will stop matching new loans on November 12, and borrowers must repay or face the protocol’s default process. X2Y2 shut its marketplace in April 2025, while Binance NFT ended service in July 2026. Magic Eden left Bitcoin and EVM NFT trading in March 2026 but continued operating its Solana marketplace. Blur’s March 2026 monthly volume was under $7 million, compared with about $1.43 billion in March 2023. Blur’s October 12 notice set a date for retiring its frontend, the website through which most people encounter its marketplace. The protocol will remain operational on Ethereum, and BLUR holders will retain control of its fee switch. A separate Blend notice said the lending service would stop matching new loans on the same date. Borrowers have until then to repay or allow their loans to default; a later withdrawal interface is promised for remaining assets.

JUST IN: s ethereum:0x5283d291dbcf85356a21ba090e6db59121208b44 drops 32% as Blur marketplace announces shut down of its marketplace frontend on Nov. 12

Blend will stop matching new loans on the same date, giving borrowers until then to repay or risk default, while Blur’s… pic.twitter.com/z9Aw62b4FW

— crypto.news (@cryptodotnews) October 13, 2026 Those sentences describe different kinds of continuity. Smart contracts can keep accepting transactions after the company stops maintaining a familiar website. A borrower who needs to manage a loan has a more immediate problem than a collector whose NFT simply remains in a wallet. Comparing Blur with other retreats reveals which functions survived and which depended on a business paying to keep the doors open.

Blur is retiring its interface, not deleting Ethereum assets Blur’s October news described a platform built for traders who needed collection bids, bulk actions and tools that a conventional gallery style marketplace did not provide. Its fee free trading model and token incentives helped it gain share during the 2023 NFT boom. The closure announcement does not say that Ethereum tokens traded on Blur will disappear. Ownership is recorded in the respective NFT contracts, which are separate from the marketplace website.

A marketplace contract is another layer. It can execute a transaction if a user or replacement interface supplies the required call and the relevant approvals, payment and signatures remain valid. A contract remaining live is not a commitment that a team will maintain search, order books, customer support, analytics or a convenient way to cancel an old listing. Blur has not announced a replacement marketplace interface. The practical usability of its contracts after November 12 will depend on outside tools and the status of existing orders.

The BLUR token will continue to govern the protocol fee switch, according to the project. That is a defined governance role, not a promise that fees will be turned on or distributed to token holders. Blur did not announce a new business plan in the shutdown notice. The value of a fee switch depends on future trading activity, decisions by token holders and the contract’s actual economics.

CoinDesk’s comparison of marketplace data puts Blur’s monthly volume at roughly $1.43 billion in March 2023 and below $7 million in March 2026. Even taking $7 million as the upper bound, the fall exceeds 99.5%. Gross trades are not revenue. At a zero marketplace fee, a billion dollars of turnover can produce no transaction fee for the protocol. Incentive costs and the economics of the company behind the website are separate questions for which the public notice offers no complete accounts.

Blend leaves borrowers with a different deadline Blend introduced lending against NFTs in 2023. A borrower pledges a collectible as collateral, receives funds and remains subject to the loan’s refinancing and default rules. The lender’s claim and the borrower’s ability to recover the NFT are governed by the loan arrangement, not by a headline saying a marketplace has shut down. Blur’s Blend schedule is therefore the more consequential notice for a user with an open position.

New loan matching ends November 12. Existing borrowers have a choice under the published statement: repay by then or allow default. Blur says it will provide a frontend tool after the cutoff for users to withdraw assets from Blend. It has not, in that notice, specified the launch time of the withdrawal tool, a complete list of supported positions or a current total of outstanding loans. An editor cannot infer that every lender or borrower has identical choices from the single sentence announcing the service change.

A trade in an NFT and a loan secured by an NFT involve different counterparties. Market liquidity can vanish without transferring ownership of a token. A lending default can change rights to pledged collateral even though a token still exists on Ethereum. Holders should distinguish the marketplace deadline from their own contract terms, and verify any recovery instructions through the project’s official channels. Closure announcements are particularly easy for impersonators to copy.

The original Blend launch explanation describes peer to peer loans without fixed expiration, and explains refinancing auctions. Those mechanics help explain why winding down new matches may matter before an old loan has a simple calendar maturity. The current notice controls the announced timeline; the 2023 design document is context for how the protocol worked, not a substitute for current position specific terms.

Which NFT businesses actually closed? X2Y2’s founder said in March 2025 that its marketplace would close on April 30 after three years. The team cited the drop in NFT trading and its decision to move into other work. Contracts remaining onchain did not preserve a functioning marketplace business. X2Y2 had reported $5.6 billion in lifetime volume, a cumulative measure that said little about the volume available to pay for future operations.

"After an incredible 3-year journey, I have some important news to share: X2Y2 will be sunsetting as an NFT marketplace on April 30, 2025. The contracts will remain live, but the platform itself will shut down." CEO @tp_x2y2 @the_x2y2 shuts down its NFT marketplace. pic.twitter.com/LqvTQjlyeE

— crypto.news (@cryptodotnews) March 31, 2025 MakersPlace announced its closure in 2025 after struggling with deteriorating conditions for digital art. Its account of the shutdown describes efforts to preserve access to works and help users recover assets held through its custody arrangements. The distinction matters: a self controlled NFT in a wallet and a work accessed through an account or embedded wallet do not require the same exit instructions. The company’s later shutdown account says winding down the site and business took almost 10 months.

Foundation’s founder said in May 2026 that an attempted rescue transaction had failed and its marketplace would not return to active service. The temporary restoration reported at the time was designed to let users delist NFTs and secure assets. A site briefly available for withdrawals should not be counted as a restored venue.

Binance closed its NFT marketplace in July 2026, giving users a deadline to withdraw transferable NFTs. Its NFT venue was part of a much larger exchange; the closure was of the NFT product, not Binance as a company. Magic Eden ended Bitcoin and EVM marketplace support in March 2026 while keeping its Solana marketplace. It is inaccurate to say Magic Eden as a whole went out of business. Each retreat removed a different route into NFT trading.

PlatformChangeWhat remained or required attentionBlurWebsite scheduled to close November 12, 2026Ethereum contracts continue; Blend users face a loan deadlineX2Y2Marketplace closed April 30, 2025Existing onchain assets and contracts did not preserve the trading siteMakersPlaceCompany and site closed during 2025Asset access depended partly on custody and retrieval arrangementsFoundationMarketplace closure confirmed in May 2026Temporary user access for delisting and securing assetsBinance NFTNFT product ended in July 2026Parent exchange continued; transferable NFTs had a withdrawal deadlineMagic EdenBitcoin and EVM trading ended in March 2026Solana marketplace continued Trading volume hid the business question The NFT industry often ranked venues by gross turnover. Volume can indicate liquidity, but it cannot by itself explain whether a marketplace can pay engineers, customer support, indexing services and security reviewers. Multiply Blur’s March 2026 volume ceiling of $7 million by a zero trading fee and transaction fee revenue remains zero. Other income streams, if any, would require separate accounting. The calculation is simple, but it cuts through the common assumption that a large historical volume figure proves a lasting business.

Trading incentives further complicate comparisons. A platform that rewards activity can attract orders that would not occur at the same frequency without rewards. Collection bids and rapid flips can make a venue essential to traders for a period without making it the default place for long term collectors. When incentives end, the relevant question is how much organic flow remains and whether that flow pays enough to maintain the service. Public volume alone cannot divide organic trades from incentive motivated ones.

For users, concentration has another cost. If collectors, lenders and developers arrange their workflows around one website, its closure can disrupt listings and price discovery even when ownership is decentralized. Interfaces perform indexing, filtering and presentation work that a raw Ethereum node does not provide. OpenSea and other surviving venues can list assets, but existing orders, fee settings, royalties and lender claims may not migrate as a simple website redirect.

The competing view deserves weight. A protocol can outlive its original operator precisely because its contracts are public and composable. Developers could create a replacement Blur interface, and users can move NFT inventory across marketplaces without a central registry moving their tokens. Blur’s continued contracts give that argument a concrete basis. What has not been shown is whether independent teams will provide the full set of tools and order discovery that the closing website supplied, or how much demand will remain for them.

The exit problem differs by asset and account An NFT holder with a token in a self controlled wallet can check the collection contract and wallet address on Ethereum regardless of the Blur website. A user with an outstanding Blend loan needs to inspect the loan’s terms and collateral status before November 12. A trader with an active listing may need to understand where the signed order can still be executed and how to revoke it. A maker who relied on a platform to host images or metadata needs to check where those files live. One closure notice cannot settle all four situations.

Token ownership and media availability are separate. NFT metadata may point to files hosted on decentralized networks, a project’s server or a third party. A marketplace typically displays information it fetches from those locations. Its closure can remove a convenient display without deleting the token or the underlying file. If the file itself depends on a service that ends, a holder can face a different problem: a token that remains transferable but displays a broken reference. The answer depends on each collection’s contract and storage design.

The same care applies to approvals. A user may have authorized a marketplace contract to transfer a collection or a token. Whether that approval remains active after the site closes depends on the contract and wallet state. A disappearing interface does not automatically revoke permissions. Equally, a general claim that every old approval is dangerous would be unsupported. The practical check is an onchain view of the wallet’s current authorizations, using independently verified contract addresses.

The platform exits do not establish that NFT art, game items or collectible markets have ended. OpenSea expanded Solana support in 2026, and Magic Eden retained Solana trading even as it closed other lines. The closures do establish that several specific services could not or did not continue in their prior form. Any account of an industry wide collapse has to separate a company’s finances from demand for each chain and collection.

Blast is connected to Blur, but it is a separate closure Blast, the Ethereum layer 2 associated with Blur founder Tieshun Roquerre, announced its own wind down on October 2. Its stated issue was that network costs exceeded revenue. Blast users were told to move assets back to Ethereum by an interface deadline; later contract access was described as a recovery route. A layer 2 network is infrastructure, not an NFT marketplace, so counting Blast as another marketplace closure would misstate the pattern.

The connection is still useful. Both projects made user access depend on maintained interfaces and operating teams, and both published paths for users to interact with surviving onchain systems. Network shutdown adds a bridge and asset migration problem that an Ethereum based marketplace frontend does not create. A collector holding an Ethereum NFT listed on Blur should not assume the Blast withdrawal schedule applies to that token. A Blast user should not rely on Blur’s November date for funds on the layer 2.

Chronology matters here: Blast announced its plan 10 days before Blur’s October 12 notice. That sequence is observable. It does not prove that one shutdown caused the other, nor does it disclose how the projects allocated staff or funds. The public announcements state different operational reasons and deadlines.

What could reverse the marketplace retreat? A recovery in NFT trading would improve the opportunity for marketplaces, but volume alone would not solve a model with no transaction fee. Surviving venues may earn from fees, ancillary tools, launch services or lending, each carrying its own costs and dependence on users. Measuring sustainable activity would require comparing fee income, incentives paid, repeat users, development spending and liquidity across collections. The closure notices do not publish a sector wide ledger with all of those entries.

JUST IN: Billionaire NFT collector Adam Weitsman buys 117 Pudgy Penguins NFTs

Weitsman says the purchases were meant to support the collection during a tough period, as Pudgy Penguins’ weekly NFT sales surged 125.66% through Oct. 10, according to CryptoSlam. pic.twitter.com/EmCwiq8Sy1

— crypto.news (@cryptodotnews) October 12, 2026 NFTs also have uses that are not repeated marketplace trades. A gallery can be maintained for long held art while trading remains light. A game item can be useful inside a game without changing hands every week. These use cases do not automatically finance a broad trading terminal. Conversely, strong demand for the asset category would not guarantee the survival of any particular intermediary that once captured its trading flow.

The narrower conclusion is more useful than a proclamation that NFTs are dead. Blur, X2Y2, MakersPlace, Foundation and Binance NFT had different clients and structures, yet each reduced or ended a service once presented as durable. A holder should know the location of the token, the identity of any custodian, the state of active orders and the deadlines for a live loan. Those facts survive headline debates about the sector.

What to watch November 12 website cutoff: Check whether Blur publishes exact steps for listings, bids and contract interaction before the frontend closes. Blend loan matching: Track whether new matches stop on schedule and how existing borrower and lender positions are handled. Withdrawal interface: Verify the release date, supported positions and official domain of the promised Blend recovery tool. Independent interfaces: Look for a working third party interface to Blur’s contracts and evidence of actual order flow after the website closes. Marketplace economics: Compare post closure trading activity with observable fee income instead of treating historical gross volume as revenue. FAQ Is Blur shutting down completely? No. Its website is scheduled to close on November 12, 2026, while its Ethereum marketplace contracts remain operational. The announcement does not guarantee continued maintenance of the familiar interface.

Will NFTs bought through Blur disappear? A Blur website closure does not delete an Ethereum NFT held in a wallet. A particular collection’s metadata and media depend on its own storage arrangement.

What happens to Blend loans on November 12? Blend stops matching new loans. Blur says borrowers must repay by the date or allow default under the protocol, and promises a later withdrawal interface.

Did Magic Eden shut down too? Magic Eden ended Bitcoin and EVM NFT marketplace support in March 2026 but continued its Solana marketplace. Calling the entire company closed would be inaccurate.

When did X2Y2 close its marketplace? X2Y2 announced an April 30, 2025 marketplace shutdown. Its founder cited the sharp fall in NFT trading and a move toward other work.

Can a listing remain executable after a website closes? Potentially, depending on the signed order, contract state and approvals. The shutdown notice alone does not cancel every authorization; users should check their own onchain position.

Was Blast another NFT marketplace that closed? No. Blast was a separate Ethereum layer 2 project associated with Blur’s founder. Its October 2 wind down involved network and bridge withdrawals.

Does the closure prove NFTs have no buyers? No. It establishes a change in several specific marketplace businesses. Other venues and collections still operate, and NFT ownership is separate from the survival of a trading site. This is educational analysis, not investment advice.

Disclaimer: This article is for information and educational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice. Figures reflect regulatory filings and reporting available at the time of writing and change with each disclosure. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security or asset. Always do your own research. Information is accurate as of October 13, 2026.

Leading cryptocurrencies plunged on Monday as geopolitical uncertainty and upcoming inflation data kept investors on edge.

Crypto Market PlungesBitcoin nearly slipped below the $81,000 mark before staging a late-evening rebound. Ethereum dipped to the $2,400 level and is now down nearly 10% over the last week. XRP and Dogecoin also recorded steep drops.

Cryptocurrency-related stocks also fell, with Strategy Inc. (NASDAQ:MSTR) and Bitmine Immersion Technologies Inc. (NYSE:BMNR) closing down 1.08% and 0.83%, respectively. 

More than $775 million in cryptocurrency positions were liquidated over the past 24 hours, including $493 million in just the last four hours, according to Coinglass data. Long position traders bore the brunt of the losses.

Read Next

Bitcoin’s open interest slipped 1.64% over the last 24 hours. Retail and whale derivatives traders on Binance, meanwhile, flipped “Bullish” on BTC, increasing their long exposure.

Top Gainers (24 Hours) 

Dow Rallies, S&P Near FlatlineStocks had a mixed day on Monday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 195.60 points, or 0.38%, to close at 51,850.55. The S&P 500, in contrast, fell 0.06% to end at 7,807.24, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite shed 0.44% to close at 27,245.90.

Russian strikes on Ukrainian energy facilities continued even after President Donald Trump announced an “energy ceasefire” between the two countries.

The United States Oil Fund (NYSE:USO), which tracks WTI crude oil, sharply rebounded, closing up 1.91% at $151.03 on Monday.

‘Pullback Isn’t the End of Anything’Ali Martinez, a widely followed cryptocurrency analyst and trader, noted that whales have increased accumulation as Bitcoin fell from $87,000 toward $80,000. However, they believe the asset still needs to clear a key “hurdle” first.

“On-chain data shows nearly 800,000 BTC were previously traded around $84,569. A break above this supply zone would strengthen the case for a move higher,” the analyst predicted.

Technical analyst Kevin said that a year-end pullback was inevitable, although their “plan” remains unchanged: $77,000-$83,000 keeps $93,000-$100,000 in play, while a close below $77,000 opens $67,000-$76,000

“CPI Wednesday is the catalyst. A pullback isn’t the end of anything. It’s the next opportunity for the sidelined and should result in a higher low,” Kevin added.

Read Next

Photo Courtesy: Marc Bruxelle on Shutterstock.com

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Bitcoin surges past $84,000, with a 1.47% gain in the past 24 hours.

According to HTX market data, Bitcoin has broken through the $84,000 mark, with a 1.47% rise over the past 24 hours.

3 minutes ago

Bybit CEO: The goal is to build a full-asset trading platform to provide users with more opportunities in global financial markets.

Bybit CEO Ben Zhou stated during the "Make Your Move" global keynote speech that Bybit’s goal is to build a trading platform covering all types of global assets, allowing everyone to access opportunities in global financial markets. Ben Zhou revealed that Bybit’s TradFi market currently offers over 500 products, including oil, foreign exchange, commodities, Nasdaq indices, and individual stock CFDs. Since launching TradFi perpetual contracts in March this year, the platform has rolled out more than 250 such contracts, with a cumulative trading volume of approximately $180 billion. Furthermore, Bybit entered the pre-market trading space in June this year, with plans to provide users with corresponding pre-market trading opportunities ahead of the listing of new stocks with strong market demand. Ben Zhou noted that Bybit should not be limited to a crypto trading platform; instead, it aims to continuously expand into diverse asset classes such as TradFi, enabling users to participate in trading across different financial markets at any time.

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Payy Launches Claims Settlement Process for Cross-Chain Bridge Contract Hack Incident

According to official announcements, privacy stablecoin payment network Payy has initiated a claims process for affected users following the September 24 cross-chain bridge contract hack. The claim application window is 30 days. Eligible claims will be disbursed in USDC on the Ethereum network. Additionally, Payy Wallet is currently suspended and will be fully shut down after the claims window closes. On September 24, Payy’s cross-chain bridge contract on Ethereum was exploited, draining all funds from the contract, resulting in losses of approximately $1.8 million.

3 minutes ago

Predict.fun launches a League of Legends World Championship themed event, with a $250,000 USDT prize pool.

According to official announcements, Predict.fun has launched the "Predict the Worlds" event themed around the League of Legends World Championship. After joining the event, users can trade in pre-match and in-match markets, earning treasure chests of varying rarity based on their accumulated trading volume. The value of these chests will be unveiled after the final match, with redemption opening at that time. The event boasts a $250,000 USDT prize pool, and special treasure chests may also include rewards such as Steam gift cards, Riot Points, and gaming chairs. The League of Legends World Championship is scheduled to kick off on October 15.

3 minutes ago

Bitdeer AI signs another 60MW data center agreement in Malaysia, bringing its global production capacity close to the 350MW target.

Crypto mining firm Bitdeer’s AI cloud division Bitdeer AI announced it has signed an 8-year data center service agreement with Malaysia’s Cyberjaya, adding 60MW of A103 AI cloud data center capacity. The expansion lifts Cyberjaya’s total capacity to 71.5MW, while pushing the company’s locked-in global AI cloud data center capacity across Malaysia, Norway and the U.S. to 333.5MW—reaching 95% of its 350MW target for Q1 2028. Bitdeer stated it will continue accelerating AI computing power deployment while balancing performance and cost to prepare for next-generation AI demands.

3 minutes ago

10 minutes countdown: Bybit CEO Ben Zhou’s global keynote speech themed "Make Your Move" is about to kick off.

According to official announcements, Bybit co-founder and CEO Ben Zhou will deliver a global keynote speech titled "Make Your Move" at 15:00 Beijing time today, with only 10 minutes remaining until the start of the event. The speech will center on four core themes: financial evolution, new financial platforms, Bybit AI, and the exchange’s next-stage development roadmap. It will focus on exploring the integration of cryptocurrency and traditional financial markets, as well as Bybit’s strategies in product innovation, global expansion, security, and compliance. Official sources revealed that exclusive previews of upcoming products and future plans will be unveiled during the speech. Additionally, audiences can engage in interactive activities including live stream keyword giveaways, a keynote-linked Q&A session, and a best clip contest, with a total prize pool of up to 5,000 USDT. The Q&A session will close on October 15, while the best clip contest deadline is October 20.

3 minutes ago

Robinhood Chain, the Arbitrum-based Ethereum layer-2 from @RobinhoodApp, has passed $1 billion in TVL about three months after launch, even as DEX activity cools.

@RobinhoodCrypto Chain has climbed above $1 billion in total value locked (TVL), roughly three months after its public launch, according to a post from @BSCNews. The network was built by @RobinhoodApp and is led by CEO @vladtenev.

The milestone comes as decentralized exchange (DEX) volumes slip week on week, a sign that growth is cooling from its launch-period highs.

How Robinhood Chain got here Robinhood launched the public mainnet of Robinhood Chain on July 1, an Arbitrum-based Ethereum Layer 2 network unveiled during a keynote event in London by CEO Vlad Tenev and SVP Johann Kerbrat. The core product is Stock Tokens, tokenized versions of US equities and ETFs that can be traded 24/7 and used as collateral in DeFi applications. The service is available in over 120 countries, though not to US persons.

Growth was quick. Standard Chartered analyst Geoffrey Kendrick said the chain had reached nearly $1 billion in TVL, describing its growth as the fastest among blockchains by that measure. He said virtually all of the chain's liquidity demand is being met through Uniswap V2, V3 and V4.

Memecoins have played a role. StoneX analyst Mark Palmer cited Robinhood's brand recognition, its permissionless structure, gas-fee subsidies and the link between memecoins and tokenized stocks as key drivers. About 10,000 tokens are launched each day through the token issuance platform Pons, according to the report.

Activity is coolingRecent data supports the view that usage has eased. The Daily Hodl reported that daily transactions fell to an average of 6.2 million in early October, down 42% from mid-September. Daily active addresses dropped 18% week over week to 268,900, while stablecoin supply held steady at $1.1 billion.

Durability is also an open question. One analysis noted that the sustainability of Robinhood Chain remains untested through a full market cycle. It pointed to four layer-1 networks (Fantom, Aurora, Canto and Songbird) that lost more than 99% of their TVL.

For now, the chain still ranks high on several measures. Traders will be watching whether TVL holds as incentives fade and which memecoins on the network keep drawing volume.

SourcesCrypto Briefing: Robinhood launches Arbitrum-based Layer 2 mainnet
Bloomingbit: Robinhood Chain nears $1 billion TVL as memecoins and tokenized stocks drive growth
The Daily Hodl: Robinhood Chain activity drops over 40%

Is the iPhone version of Doubao Assistant on the way? Pelican lets AI keep running on the lock screen.

Beating AI News Brief: Developer Finn Voorhees has unveiled Pelican, an iPhone AI Agent app now in limited TestFlight testing with a full launch planned for the near future. The app supports tools including MCP, browser operations, and maps, and can connect to AI models from various vendors. According to Voorhees, the Agent executes tasks directly on the iPhone, continuing to work even when switching apps or locking the screen—eliminating the need for an additional Mac mini. Just days ago, he demonstrated Pi Agent paired with Claude Opus 5.5 to operate an iPhone, automatically opening Ryanair to search for flight tickets, with no computer involved in the entire process. Voorhees previously open-sourced PiDurableKit, which leverages Apple’s JavaScriptCore to run Pi Agent on iPhone and uses SQLite to save task states, allowing the Agent to resume execution after being interrupted by the system. PiChat, a chat app built on this framework, also uses Apple’s background task mechanism to keep the Agent working after switching to other apps. When asked if Pelican runs entirely locally, Voorhees replied that all components except model API requests run on the device. He also plans to integrate small local models, so the Agent can handle some private data without uploading it to the cloud. Pelican remains in early testing, and Voorhees has not yet confirmed whether it includes the cross-app click capability demonstrated earlier.

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Two addresses linked to BIT each purchased 12,000 ETH, pushing their total long position to $60 million.

According to TradingBeats' monitoring, this morning, addresses under BIT (formerly Matrixport) — 0xbd1c…ff0e and 0x2371…0883 — successively added positions, purchasing 12,000 ETH each for a total of 24,000 ETH bought. The average holding prices of the two addresses are approximately $2,420 and $2,422 respectively. Currently, the combined ETH long positions held by the two addresses use 20x full-position leverage, with a position value of around $60.29 million and total unrealized profit of roughly $2.19 million. ETH is currently trading at approximately $2,512, up about 3.8% from the average holding price of the two addresses.

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OKX will launch WUSD and BLURUSD-denominated X-Perp contracts today.

OKX official announcement shows that the platform will launch WUSD and BLURUSD-based X-Perp contracts on October 13, with support for web, mobile app and API trading. The specific opening times (Beijing Time) are as follows: 16:00 for WUSD-based X-Perp contracts, and 16:15 for BLURUSD-based X-Perp contracts.

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Papertrade’s revenue reached $4.02 million in the past 24 hours, surpassing Pump and Hyperliquid.

According to DefiLlama data, Papertrade’s 24-hour revenue hit $4.02 million, placing it third in the overall protocol revenue rankings. It outpaces Pump ($2.11 million) and Hyperliquid ($1.7 million), coming in second only to Tether and Circle.

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Neura will shut down its v1 testnet and Neuraverse.

AI-native economy Layer 1 (L1) blockchain project Neura announced via tweet that it will take offline its v1 testnet and Neuraverse as it moves to the next phase. The team has taken full snapshots of point balances, leaderboards, task completions, and activity histories to ensure no data is lost.

4 minutes ago

Chinese victims in the Qian Zhimin case may only be able to recover their principal and interest.

According to Caixin, a UK court has issued a key ruling in the cross-border asset recovery dispute involving over 61,000 Bitcoin linked to China’s Tianjin Lantian Gerui illegal fundraising case. A judgment obtained by Caixin from the UK High Court on October 12 (local time) shows that the High Court ruled property rights claims filed by Chinese investors over the Bitcoin in question should be adjudicated under Chinese law, not UK law. This means around 16,000 Chinese victims who have joined the UK recovery process may not be able to claim the massive value gains from Bitcoin’s price surge under UK law, and can only recover their principal plus interest at most. Qian Zhimin purchased Bitcoin via Huobi in 2014 at an average price of around 2,815 yuan. Since then, Bitcoin’s price has risen sharply. Despite multiple rounds of extreme volatility, as of October 12, 2026, Bitcoin’s price stood at around 560,000 yuan, roughly 200 times the average price Qian paid back then. During the trial held from July 7 to 9 this year, the Director of the UK Crown Prosecution Service argued for applying Chinese law, while the liquidator of Tianjin Lantian Gerui Electronic Technology Co., Ltd. supported this stance. Lawyers representing Chinese individual investors, however, advocated applying UK law or a combination of Chinese and UK laws. The court ultimately upheld the position of the UK prosecution authorities.

4 minutes ago

Tom Lee sees $2 trillion wealth transfer fueling crypto demand as Bitmine buys more ether

Ethereum, XRP Could Drop Another 10% Before Real Relief, Trader Warns

The Ethereum treasury company's weekly purchase shrank for a third straight week, while a lower ether price pulled its total holdings down to $16.2 billion.

Tom Lee's Bitmine closes in on 5% of ether's supply

Posted October 12, 2026 at 12:18 pm ET.

Bitmine Immersion Technologies (NYSE: BMNR) held 6,028,946 ETH as of Oct. 11, the Ethereum treasury company said in a press release on Monday. That stake works out to about 4.9% of ether’s 122.1 million supply, roughly 76,000 ETH below the 5% target Bitmine has chased since launching its ETH treasury strategy on June 30, 2025.

The firm added 12,532 ETH during the week. That compares with 15,112 ETH in its previous update and 17,362 ETH the week before that, making this the third consecutive week of smaller purchases.

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Holdings Dip to $16.2 Billion Bitmine valued its crypto, cash, marketable securities and “moonshot” stakes at $16.2 billion combined, compared with $17.4 billion a week earlier. Its ETH count grew, so the decline in part came from price declines: the company marked ether at $2,544, using Coinbase pricing, versus $2,726 in the prior update.

Outside of ether, Bitmine reported 214 bitcoin, a $180 million position in Beast Industries, an $85 million position in Eightco Holdings (NASDAQ: ORBS) and $612 million in cash and marketable securities. The Eightco stake had been listed at $117 million the week before.

Staked ETH sat at 5,067,309 tokens, the same figure Bitmine gave last week. Bitmine Chairman Tom Lee projected $400 million in annualized staking rewards once all of its ETH is staked, based on a 2.61% seven-day yield, against $336 million at the current level.

Lee Pitches a Coming Bull Market Lee used the release to argue that Bitmine is set up for a rally he expects. With the company close to its target, he said, “we believe the company is attractively positioned ahead of the coming crypto bull.” Pointing to tokenization, wealth transfer, digital asset treasuries holding supply off the market and AI, he added that “we see the potential for this to be the largest ever crypto bull market.”

He also said Bitmine’s shares fell 3% over the first nine months of 2026 while ether dropped 10%. BMNP, the 9.5% perpetual preferred stock Bitmine filed to offer in June, most recently closed at $99.53, up from its $80 issue price, according to the release.

In May, Lee said Bitmine might ease its ether purchases as it approached the 5% mark. For comparison, Bitmine reported buying 53,501 ETH in its Aug. 31 update.

Related Listen: How the New Ethlabs Plans to Make Ethereum More Intentional in Designing ETH

AI-assisted content: This article was produced with the assistance of AI tools and was reviewed, edited, and fact-checked by a member of the Unchained editorial team before publication.

BitMine’s Tom Lee Drops a Bull Market Bombshell