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TLDR A wallet tied to the April Drift hack sent 25,710 ETH, worth about $63.1 million, into Tornado Cash on Oct. 20. The wallet made 258 deposits over two hours and 13 minutes, leaving about 3.98 ETH behind. Drift estimated about $280 million was taken in the April 1 attack, which Mandiant linked to North Korean group UNC6862. Drift opened DFX token claims on Oct. 1, giving users one DFX for each USDT of verified loss. As of Oct. 4, the redemption quote was about 0.0104 USDT per DFX, close to one cent per USDT lost. A wallet tied to the April hack of crypto trading protocol Drift sent 25,710 ETH into the Tornado Cash mixer on Oct. 20. The transfers were worth about $63.1 million.

The address is labeled “Drift Exploiter 5” on the blockchain explorer Etherscan. The deposits were the wallet’s first outgoing Ethereum transactions, and they left it nearly empty.

How the Transfers Happened The wallet made 258 deposits to the Tornado Cash router. It sent 257 deposits of 100 ETH each, followed by one final deposit of 10 ETH.

The first deposit was confirmed at 07:08:35 UTC in block 26,232,203. The last came at 09:21:35 UTC in block 26,232,865. The full sequence took two hours and 13 minutes.

After the transfers, the address held about 3.98 ETH. The dollar value of the deposits is based on an average Ethereum price of $2,450 on Oct. 20.

On-chain analysis account Lookonchain separately reported that the exploiter wallets it tracks hold a combined 81,864 ETH.

Drift was attacked on April 1, more than six months before these transfers. In an April 2 disclosure, the protocol estimated that about $280 million had been withdrawn.

Drift said the attacker took over the administrative powers of its Security Council. The attacker used durable nonce accounts to pre-sign transactions and delay when they were carried out.

According to Drift, this allowed the attacker to get unauthorized or misrepresented transaction approvals in advance. At the time, the protocol said it had not found a bug in its programs or smart contracts.

In a June 4 update, Drift said the investigation it hired Mandiant to carry out linked the attack to UNC6862. That is a North Korean threat group.

How Drift Plans to Repay Users Drift has set up a Recovery Pool to return funds to affected users. Money recovered through freezes, a bounty, or law enforcement goes into the pool. A share of the platform’s net protocol revenue is also added.

The protocol opened claims and redemptions for its DFX token on Oct. 1. Users receive one DFX for each USDT of verified loss.

Holders can trade their DFX for USDT at the quoted redemption amount. The tokens they submit are burned in the same transaction.

Users who redeem give up their share of future pool deposits for those tokens. Those who redeem only part of their holdings keep that share for the DFX they hold onto.

As of Oct. 4, the quote was about 0.0104 USDT per DFX. That is close to one cent per USDT lost.

In an April 16 update, Drift proposed up to $127.5 million from Tether and $20 million from other partners. The plan included a revenue-linked credit facility, an ecosystem grant, and market-maker loans.

The Oct. 20 deposits show where this wallet’s ETH went. How much of the stolen money will return to the Recovery Pool is still unknown. Ethereum was last trading at $2,462.20, up 3.55% over the past 24 hours.

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Fhenix has announced that its CoFHE coprocessor, which leverages fully homomorphic encryption (FHE), is now operational on both the Arbitrum and Ethereum networks. This milestone marks the shift of CoFHE from public test environments into full production, signaling a significant development in on-chain encrypted computation.

Key features of CoFHE and dual-mode tokensFHE, a cryptographic method, allows computing on encrypted data without needing to decrypt it first. By integrating this technology, Fhenix has enabled developers to perform complex calculations off-chain while preserving user privacy. The results of these encrypted computations are then relayed back to smart contracts across the two networks.

Fhenix claims that developers can integrate CoFHE with a single Solidity import, using encrypted data types that function like standard variables within Solidity-based applications. This integration is designed to streamline adoption while maintaining compatibility with existing Ethereum development practices.

Mini dictionary: Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE), a form of encryption that allows computations to be performed on encrypted data without needing to decrypt it. This enables privacy-preserving operations, safeguarding confidential information even during processing.

With the launch, the company has also rolled out its dual-mode token design. This new standard equips tokens with both public and confidential modes, allowing holders to switch balances between the two with a single transaction. According to Fhenix, these tokens always remain on their native chain and are neither wrapped nor bridged, ensuring compatibility with existing wallets, exchanges, and decentralized finance protocols.

Security audit and early partnersPrior to launch, Fhenix engaged Consensys Diligence to conduct a security audit of the CoFHE system. The company stated that the system successfully passed the audit, although a publicly accessible report has not been located.

On its first day in production, Fhenix onboarded two design partners: Fluton and AlphaEngine. Fluton is described as a confidentiality engine focusing on encrypted intents, while AlphaEngine offers a platform where strategists compete for user liquidity using private, encrypted strategies. Fhenix noted that AlphaEngine utilizes a trusted execution environment to decrypt and match user swap intents, supporting confidential transaction execution.

Mini dictionary: Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) is a secure area of a processor that ensures sensitive data is processed safely, protecting it from external software attacks.

Upcoming launches and ecosystem developmentFhenix reported that three additional applications are scheduled to launch on the CoFHE platform in the fourth quarter. The company also indicated that it will soon announce two new strategic partnerships with institutional players.

Founder Guy Zyskind mentioned that the team is collaborating with Tandem on a confidential stablecoin project. Tandem is the venture division of Offchain Labs, which develops the Arbitrum network and invested in Fhenix in 2025.

Founder Guy Zyskind stated that Fhenix is “working on a confidential stablecoin together with Tandem,” as part of the growing institutional interest in privacy-enabled blockchain assets.

Competitive developments in FHE stablecoinsFhenix is not the only company using FHE for stablecoin applications. In May, Circle, the issuer of USDC, froze approximately $12.6 million related to a confidential USDC contract managed by Zama, another FHE-focused technology developer. The action affected funds belonging to users who had no connection to the underlying legal case that prompted the freeze.

Tokens issued under Fhenix’s dual-mode standard carry a confidential mode alongside their public one, enabling users to move balances between modes securely without transferring assets across chains or requiring wrapped tokens.

Ethereum Price hovered at $2,448.46 on Wednesday, rising 2.76% over 24 hours as the broader cryptocurrency market gained ground.  

The overall crypto market capitalization rose by 2.49%, reaching $2.79 trillion during the same time, and major tokens gained.

Bitcoin was trading at $82,930, with a near-term bias being bullish, having recorded a slight recovery in the last session. XRP price mostly remained at 1.333 following a gain of over 2% the previous day.

Ethereum Schedules Glamsterdam Upgrade on Hoodi for October 26
Ethereum developers have scheduled Glamsterdam’s Hoodi testnet activation for October 26, 2026, with a higher gas limit. The Ethereum Foundation announced on October 16 that activation will be at 17:42:48 UTC, after the rollout of Sepolia on October 6.

Ethereum Sets October 26 for Glamsterdam Upgrade on Hoodi Testnet, Raising Gas Limit to 200 Million

The Ethereum Foundation announced that the Glamsterdam upgrade will activate on the Hoodi testnet on October 26 at 17:42 UTC, raising its block gas limit to 200 million, matching Sepolia. The upgrade introduces enshrined proposer-builder separation (ePBS) and block-level access lists (BALs) to enable parallel transaction validation and improve Ethereum Layer 1 throughput, alongside revised gas pricing for state creation and data access.

— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) October 20, 2026

The block gas limit of Hoodi will be 200 million, equal to Sepolia, and increase the testing transaction processing capacity.

Glamsterdam proposes proposer-builder separation and block-level access lists, which are enshrined to enhance block production and allow parallel validations of transactions. The upgrade also changes the prices of gas to create blockchain state and to access stored data.

Execution and consensus clients require updating before they can be activated. These changes will be tested by developers on test networks before they can proceed, and the date to activate the Ethereum mainnet has not been decided yet.

Will Ethereum Price Hit $3K This Month?
ETH price rallied from its recent lows, with the $2,500 resistance level on the horizon.  The $2,500 level marks the first major test because earlier trading repeatedly clustered around that area. 

A four-hour close above this barrier could open a move toward $2,600, the next clearly marked resistance. And if the bullish trend continues, the ETH long-term prediction could rally to $3k.

Source: TradingView
The MACD line was at 4.51 and above the signal line of negative 3.41, and the histogram 7.92.  The RSI, however, stayed above the 50 average and above the 50 level as it stood at 59.  The area nearest to the marked support, $2,400, is the next closest marked support.

 A prolonged decline below it may see the recent levels in the range of $2,320–$ 2,350 tested again. If more weakness occurs, $2,300 will be considered, but the chart does not confirm a support level there.

Ethereum Staking Hits Record 43.8 Million ETH
According to the Bitwise report, dated October 20, Ethereum also had a record 43.8 million ETH staked at the end of September. 

Bitwise
Net inflows of 1.99 million ETH in Q3 led to Staked Ether accounting for 35.9% of the total supply. The rise represented the sixth quarter of Ethereum’s stake growth in the last six quarters. Meanwhile, the annualised staking yields fell slightly to 2.63%, from 2.81% in the previous quarter.

JPM Coin moves beyond Base onto Ethereum, with the bank citing liquidity and existing client use while keeping holders on an approved list

JPMorgan said Monday that it will make JPM Coin, its token representing US dollar deposits at the bank, available to institutional clients on the Ethereum network, according to Bloomberg. The token first launched on Base, the Coinbase-affiliated layer-2 network, in November 2025.

Emma Landriault, global head of Kinexys Labs at the bank's blockchain unit, told Bloomberg that JPMorgan chose Ethereum for its liquidity and because clients already use it. She described two target groups: crypto firms that want to make payments over blockchain networks, and financial institutions that need onchain cash to settle trades in tokenized assets or post as collateral.

Access stays restricted. JPM Coin is a claim on a deposit at JPMorgan, usable by approved institutional participants rather than any Ethereum wallet. That separates it from stablecoins, which circulate freely, and keeps it inside the bank's compliance perimeter even though the token now sits on a public chain.

The bank's private rail is already large. Kinexys's own Blockchain Deposit Account network handles more than $7 billion in daily volume, against about $12 trillion a day across JPMorgan's payments business as a whole, according to Bloomberg's reporting. The public-chain version is aimed at counterparties that cannot or will not sit on a private ledger.

A rollout Blockhead has tracked in stagesBlockhead reported the first public-chain plan in June 2025, when JPMorgan said it would launch the deposit token on Base. In December 2025 it covered the bank launching a $100 million tokenized money market fund on Ethereum, a sign that the bank was not tied to one network. In January, Blockhead covered the plan to bring JPM Coin to the Canton Network in phases through 2026, a route that still has to deliver.

The Ethereum move also sits next to other work on bank money. In June, Blockhead reported that JPMorgan, Citi and other US banks were planning a shared tokenized deposit network for 2027 through The Clearing House. In August, the bank was weighing a stablecoin of its own, which would run in parallel with JPM Coin rather than replace it. And Kinexys's technology already sits under tokenized fund products such as BlackRock's tokenized money market share classes, which are available in Singapore.

The Asia connectionKinexys's Asian partnerships point the same way. Blockhead covered the DBS and JPMorgan framework for moving tokenised deposits across public and permissioned blockchains last November. A JPM Coin that lives on Ethereum is the kind of endpoint that framework was meant to reach, though neither bank has said whether it will connect to the new deployment.

What is still unknownThe reports do not name clients, volumes or fees for the Ethereum deployment. The restricted-access design also means other banks' tokens will not be able to move freely against JPM Coin without agreed standards, which is the gap The Clearing House network is meant to fill. What the launch does show is where the largest US bank expects institutional settlement to happen: on a public chain, with a permission list attached.

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Bitcoin, Ethereum and XRP are all testing support levels that could decide whether the crypto market recovers or falls further. Ali Martinez says all three could rebound, “but only if these levels hold.” Gareth Soloway’s view of Bitcoin and Ethereum is similar, though he places the trigger points differently.

Bitcoin: Both Watch $81,000

Martinez and Soloway both see $81,000 as the important level for Bitcoin.

Ali Martinez:

$81,000 is the bottom of Bitcoin’s rising channel on the daily chart.If buyers defend it, BTC could move to the middle of the channel at $84,000, then to the top at $86,500.A break below $81,000 would shift his focus to $76,000.Gareth Soloway:

Bitcoin is stuck in a range of about $6,000, between $81,000 and $87,200.It briefly fell to about $79,750 before climbing back above support.A move above $87,200 could take BTC to a rising trendline near $91,000. By late November, that trendline would be near $97,000.A daily close below $81,000 would point to lower prices.Soloway said the bullish structure is intact, though he called the price action “not the healthiest.” He said that Bitcoin has held up despite the slide in AI stocks and the Nasdaq. He currently has no swing position in BTC.

Ethereum: $2,350 Or Sub-$2,000

Ali Martinez:

ETH is testing $2,350, the support line of a right-angled ascending broadening pattern.A bounce from there could take it to $2,700, or as high as $3,000.A daily close below $2,350 would bring $2,000 into focus.Gareth Soloway:

ETH has held its key support but has not yet broken its key resistance.A breakout should lead to a retest of $2,800.A breakdown could send ETH below $2,000, where Soloway said he would be a heavy buyer.XRP: An Inverse Head And Shoulders In The Making

Martinez is watching $1.25 for XRP. On the three-day chart, holding that level could complete the right shoulder of a possible inverse head-and-shoulders pattern, a setup that often comes before a trend reversal.

Confirmation: a sustained close above $1.56Target if confirmed: $2Risk: losing $1.25 would bring $1 into view Story Ends Here

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Ethereum staking reached approximately 36% of the total supply, while the annual yield dropped to 2.63%; a similar trend was observed in Solana.

The amount of ETH locked for staking on the Ethereum network reached a new record high of 43.8 million in the third quarter of 2026. According to data released by Bitwise, this amount represents approximately 36% of the total Ethereum supply. The net amount of ETH that entered the staking system in the first nine months of the year was 7.96 million.

Investor returns moved in the opposite direction during the same period. Ethereum’s annualized average staking yield fell from 2.81 percent in the second quarter to 2.63 percent. As more ETH joins the validator system, the rewards distributed by the network are shared among a wider pool.

Ethereum staking balance grew for the sixth consecutive quarter, with net inflows of approximately 2 million ETH recorded in the third quarter. Bitwise cited institutional investors as a significant driver of this growth. However, over 96% of staking revenue came from newly created ETH. The share of MEV revenue from transaction tips and queuing within blocks remained limited.

Ethereum network revenue also fell from $63 million in the second quarter to approximately $40.6 million. On Solana, 440.5 million SOL, or 69% of the total supply, was staked. Solana’s transaction fees increased by 49% to $76 million, while the number of transactions reached 14.2 billion.

The record staking volume could support the economic security of both networks. However, increased participation doesn’t guarantee higher returns for each token; on the contrary, data shows reward rates remain under pressure.

*This is not investment advice.

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Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, Dogecoin Gain as Oil Prices and Treasury Yields Cool: Analyst Says BTC 'Building Bottom,' but Spot Demand 'Still Weak'

37 minutes ago

According to security firm Salus' monitoring, on October 21, the attacker behind Drift Protocol began transferring funds from another long-dormant wallet, depositing 4,600 ETH into Tornado Cash, valued at around $11.23 million. The two linked wallets tracked by Salus have now deposited a total of 30,310 ETH into Tornado Cash. The address starting with 0xaa8 had previously sent 19,600 ETH to Tornado Cash, then added another 6,110 ETH, bringing its total deposits to 25,710 ETH. The other address starting with 0xd3f, after lying dormant for about 202 days, made its first outbound transfer, sending 4,600 ETH to Tornado Cash in 46 separate transactions over roughly 19 minutes. This address had earlier received a total of around 24,882 ETH across 11 wallets, with funds primarily sourced from USDC bridged from Solana to Ethereum via CCTP and converted into ETH. As of the monitoring time, the address still holds approximately 20,286 ETH.

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Ethereum staking reached a record 43.8 million ETH, or 35.9% of supply, in Q3 2026, according to Bitwise, while yields fell to 2.63%. Solana had 69% of its supply staked.

Ethereum (@ethereum) staking reached an all-time high of 43.8 million $ETH at the end of the third quarter, according to Bitwise's (@Bitwise) latest staking report. The figure represents 35.9% of the total supply.

The milestone came even as returns for stakers continued to shrink, a trend that also showed up on Solana (@solana) $SOL.

Inflows rise for a sixth straight quarter, yields slip Yields moved in the opposite direction.

Bitwise's explanation is that rewards are shared among more participants. The report also points to where the yield comes from: , according to Crypto Economy's summary of the report.

Institutional demand played a role.

The number of validators fell, but Bitwise links that to consolidation rather than unstaking.

Solana leads on share of supply staked The report's coverage also included other networks, with , which leaves Solana with the highest staked share among the networks cited here.

Solana's validator set also shrank. Network activity rose over the same period:

The data suggests staking demand on both networks is holding up despite lower returns, though rising participation may keep compressing per-staker rewards.

SourcesThe Block: Ethereum staking hits record as yields fall and Solana activity grows

Benzinga: Ethereum, Solana, HYPE growth isn't lifting staking yields

FXStreet: Ethereum staking hits record 43.8M ETH as yields fall to 2.63%

Malaysia's central bank launches SSDS+ platform to support the issuance of tokenized bonds and Islamic bonds.

Bank Negara Malaysia, Malaysia’s central bank, has announced the launch of SSDS+, a next-generation paperless securities depository system based on distributed ledger technology. The platform supports the issuance, depository, and custody of tokenized debt securities, including sukuk (Islamic bonds). It can track the ownership and transfer of tokenized securities, and connects to the real-time electronic funds and securities transfer system RENTAS+ to settle bond payments using central bank currency. Bank Negara Malaysia stated that SSDS+ is primarily designed for wholesale issuance, but it also already has the capability to support tokenized government bonds and corporate retail bonds.

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South Korean stocks closed up more than 3%, with SK Hynix rising 5.8%.

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Arthur Hayes: Flop Labs' testnet and airdrop are expected to launch in the coming weeks.

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Bitcoin, Ethereum or XRP? Wintermute Picks the Safe Asset

Sberbank, the largest bank in Russia, plans to make Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Tether’s USDT accessible to its 110.6 million retail customers starting December 1. The bank received approval from the Bank of Russia to operate as both a cryptocurrency exchange and a digital depository, according to recent announcements.

Launch details and access channelsThe new crypto assets will become available through Sberbank’s existing digital platforms, including SberBank Online, SberInvestments, and SberBusiness. As of the last quarter, Sberbank also served 3.5 million corporate clients. These established channels are already widely used by Russian consumers for day-to-day banking activities.

The exchange and depository licenses were cleared by the Bank of Russia, with the depository permit coming six days prior to the exchange approval on October 12. Sberbank indicated that the digital depository status will allow the bank to provide crypto trading and custody services within interfaces familiar to its clients.

“This status will allow the bank to provide services related to organizing the circulation of digital currency on interfaces which clients already use.”

Sberbank’s launch date is contingent on the finalization of secondary regulations by the central bank. The bank is now authorized to act as a counterparty to client trades and record client holdings in-house, eliminating the need for third-party platforms.

Asset offerings and investor restrictionsFor the initial rollout, only Bitcoin, Ether, and USDT are included in the Bank of Russia’s draft list for retail trading. Anatoly Popov, Deputy Chairman of Sberbank, has estimated that the annual crypto trading volume in Russia could reach 4 trillion rubles, approximately $48 billion, after the introduction of these services.

In recent years, Sberbank has expanded its digital asset services, offering structured bonds and digital financial products linked to cryptocurrencies. In December 2025, the bank conducted a test of a crypto-backed loan involving qualified investors, and its offerings now extend to crypto baskets as well.

First Deputy Chairman Alexander Vedyakhin explained that a digital depository would be central to the new infrastructure, maintaining records of client cryptocurrency rights and accounting for off-chain transactions.

Mini dictionary: Digital depository, a platform or entity designated to store, record, and track digital assets and cryptocurrency holdings for users, often performing custodial and settlement functions outside of public blockchains.

Regulatory framework and transaction limitsUnder the latest regulations, approved intermediaries such as Sberbank may sell up to 300,000 rubles (around $3,600) of digital assets annually to each non-qualified retail investor. Buyers must pass a knowledge test before making such purchases. Despite the ability to buy cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Sberbank clients will not be able to use crypto for goods and services payments within Russia, in line with the country’s prohibition on crypto payments for transactions.

Further, the law specifically prohibits transfers of digital currency between individuals and bans transfers to non-custodial wallets. The Bank of Russia clarified that individual-to-individual digital currency transfers are forbidden under Part 5 of Article 31 of Federal Law No. 282-FZ, although certain direct deals will be permitted until July 1, 2027.

AssetStatus for Retail BuyersYearly Cap (Non-qualified)Bitcoin (BTC)Approved300,000 RUBEthereum (ETH)Approved300,000 RUBUSDTApproved300,000 RUBPresident Vladimir Putin signed the law “On digital currencies and digital rights” in August, putting it into effect on September 1. Until July 2027, some limited direct peer-to-peer crypto deals are still permitted.

Sberbank is one of nine companies on the Bank of Russia’s register of exchange operators, alongside other major Russian institutions such as VTB and T-Invest Lab. The depository register includes five entities, featuring VTB and Atomyze. Currently, Sberbank, VTB, and Atomyze are all subject to Western sanctions in response to Russia’s actions in Ukraine, and authorities have accused Moscow of using digital assets to attempt to bypass these restrictions.

Why Is Bitmine Stock Surging on Tuesday?

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Optimum wants one number to do the work before anything else: $3.4 billion. That is the dollar value of Ethereum stake the startup says its block-propagation protocol, mump2p, is already “boosting” after going live on Ethereum mainnet on October 20. The launch went out on X with a simpler claim — that data now moves across Ethereum two to three times faster than the default network.

The Optimum team is pleased to announce our first mainnet deployment, mump2p on Ethereum. With mump2p, data moves across all of Ethereum 2-3x faster, boosting validator performance and network health.

$3.4B of Ethereum stake is already being boosted by mump2p, and we’re now… pic.twitter.com/6HP0eMAd3D

— Optimum (@get_optimum) October 20, 2026

Behind the headline sit 16 node operators, roughly 22,000 validator keys, and more than 1.4 million ETH in active stake, according to Optimum’s launch announcement. It is the first production deployment of Random Linear Network Coding, or RLNC, on Ethereum’s consensus layer — technology co-invented by MIT professor Muriel Médard, who is also Optimum’s co-founder and chief executive.

What mump2p actually changes
mump2p runs as a sidecar gateway beside a validator’s consensus client. It does not replace GossipSub, the gossip protocol Ethereum’s consensus layer uses by default, and it does not touch consensus rules, execution, or signing keys. Blocks and attestations still travel the default path; mump2p adds a second, coded channel that can deliver the same data sooner.

Under the hood, the protocol breaks a block into fragments and sends random linear combinations of those fragments. A receiving node reconstructs the full block after collecting enough linearly independent pieces. Because every node can forward and recombine fragments before the entire message arrives, the network stops re-sending identical data through every hop — the main source of gossip overhead.

Validators reach mump2p through two services. Signal lets a validator receive blocks and attestations earlier than it would over GossipSub alone and is free. Accelerate propagates the blocks a validator sends and is offered to operators running 200 or more validators, according to Optimum’s product page.

The $3.4 billion number, deconstructed
The “Total Value Boosted” figure is easy to decode. Divide $3.4 billion by 1.4 million ETH and you get about $2,428 per ether — almost exactly where ETH traded around the launch, and just below the $2,454 it printed on CoinGecko at the time of writing. Total Value Boosted is not a separate economic quantity. It is staked ether multiplied by the market price, given a new name.

Optimum says its reach is “more than 3%” of all staked ETH. The arithmetic holds: 1.4 million ETH is about 3.2% of the roughly 43.7 million ETH locked in the Beacon Chain.

The speed claims are where the numbers begin to drift. The launch post says “2-3x faster.” The homepage advertises “2-4x faster” and a “90% first seen” rate. The press release cites 2.42 times faster block delivery and 7.88 times lower arrival variance, with mump2p users seeing the block first in nine of ten measurements. All of it is self-reported, and the announcement does not disclose how the measurements were gathered.

There is also a count that does not match. The homepage says “20 mainnet partners & counting,” while the release names 16 node operators. Optimum did not explain the gap.

What faster blocks actually buy a validator
Ethereum validators earn rewards in small, regular increments for attesting to blocks. When they attest late or on the wrong head, they forfeit part of that reward. A validator that reliably sees blocks a few hundred milliseconds sooner misses fewer head votes and collects a steadier stream.

The second payoff sits on the proposal side. A block proposer has a narrow window to collect bids from builders before it must commit. Accelerate is pitched as a way to wait longer for higher MEV bids and still land the block on time. That is a measurable margin for large operators — and the reason a liquid restaking provider would make the software mandatory.

Rok Kopp, ether.fi’s co-founder and chief growth officer, framed the decision in the announcement: “We don’t mandate new infrastructure across our entire validator set unless we’re confident it raises the bar for our stakers and for the network.” Optimum says ether.fi now requires all 12 of its node operators to run mump2p.

What isn’t proven yet
The numbers are Optimum’s own. There is no independent benchmark, and ether.fi has not published anything about the mandate on its own blog, docs, or governance forum. The 2.42x and 7.88x figures also appeared in an Optimum-sponsored Four Pillars report in August, which described a test across 30 gateways while the protocol was still preparing for mainnet.

The full operator list, as Optimum published it: Blockdaemon, Everstake, P2P.org, Stakefish, Luganodes, InfStones, Meria, Finoa, Node.Monster, HashKey Cloud, DSRV, RockX, Nansen, Validatrium, Ebunker and Validation Cloud. That roster spans most of the institutional staking market — and none of them independently confirmed the performance numbers either.

“Permissionless” deserves the same scrutiny. Optimum’s marketing describes free, permissionless onboarding, but its own August blog post called the network “permissioned for now,” with operators connecting through an API key issued by the company.

There is also a hard bound on what mump2p can do. It accelerates how quickly data arrives; it does not make Ethereum settle transactions faster or process more of them. The upside is concentrated in attestation timing and the proposer’s bid window — real money for operators, but not a consensus upgrade.

Médard put the pitch in sharper terms in the announcement: “In traditional finance, firms spend billions shaving milliseconds off execution because speed is money. The same economics now apply to Ethereum’s top operators.” And: “This goes beyond validator performance. Optimum is the optimal acceleration path, built on a new coded networking approach for systems that are truly decentralized.”

The next signals are concrete. An independent benchmark of mump2p’s mainnet numbers, an official ether.fi confirmation, and the launch of “Optimum for Traders” — which the team says is coming without a date — would each move the story from self-reported claims toward verified validator infrastructure.

Disclosure: This article does not represent investment advice. The content and materials featured on this page are for educational purposes only.

Midnight Network has unveiled Nightmode, a cross-chain privacy feature built with Sig Network that uses MPC vaults to extend $NIGHT privacy tools to Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana and Tron.

Midnight Network has unveiled Nightmode, a cross-chain privacy feature built with @MidnightNtwrk and @Sig_Network. It is designed to extend Midnight's privacy tools to chains including Bitcoin ($BTC), Ethereum ($ETH), Solana ($SOL) and Tron ($TRX) without relying on a conventional bridge.

Nightmode is due to go live on mainnet with ledger v9, Midnight's next major network upgrade, later this year.

How Nightmode worksUsers lock coins in vaults on their home chain and receive a matching private balance on Midnight, guarded by shared keys. According to Crypto Economy, the vaults are Multi-Party Computation (MPC) contracts, and the original assets stay on their native network rather than moving through a traditional bridge. The same report says a vault is governed by seven private cryptographic signatures, and that Midnight records each deposit and issues tokens representing the user's balance in a shielded pool.

Sig Network describes itself as a signing network. On its website, it says no single signer holds the key and that it signs only requests that come from a contract on Midnight. It also says Midnight contracts can hold accounts on Ethereum, so users can trade on Uniswap or lend on Aave while their identities stay shielded.

On apps such as Uniswap, trade amounts stay public but the user behind them stays hidden. KuCoin News reports that users can trade, swap or stake the shielded tokens, and that burning them redeems the original native assets. The same report says Nightmode supports selective disclosure based on zero-knowledge proofs, aimed at meeting compliance requirements.

Context: ledger v9 and Midnight's push into DeFiLedger v9 is also the upgrade tied to Midnight's planned Solana support. Hokanews reports that Midnight Foundation CTO Sebastien Guillemot said the Solana integration remains on testnet, with a mainnet rollout scheduled for later in 2026. Midnight's own roadmap says the project is extending NightMode to additional blockchains, giving users on those networks access to private transactions on Midnight and giving Midnight users access to the liquidity held there.

Crypto Economy notes that the design targets DeFi, payments and real-world asset settlement, and that it does not claim transaction detail becomes invisible. Trade values remain visible, while identity information stays unlinked.

Nightmode is still pending mainnet release, so its real-world performance and security remain to be tested. Users should watch for the ledger v9 launch date and any audits of the vault design.

Sources

Crypto Economy: Nightmode Introduces MPC Vault ArchitectureKuCoin News: Midnight Launches NightmodeMidnight Roadmap

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Ethereum, Solana, HYPE Growth Isn’t Lifting Staking Yields: Bitwise

Ethereum and Solana have reached significant milestones in staking, according to a report by Bitwise. Ethereum’s staking surged to 43.8 million ETH, representing 35.9% of its total supply. Meanwhile, Solana saw 69% of its supply staked by the end of the third quarter. This development highlights the growing interest in proof-of-stake networks, with both Ethereum and Solana experiencing increased staking participation.

The report indicates a robust inflow of staking activity, with Ethereum recording nearly 2 million ETH in net staking inflows during the quarter. However, Ethereum’s annualized staking yield has seen a decline, dropping to 2.63% from 2.81% as rewards are distributed over a larger base. Solana’s increased staking percentage reflects growing confidence in its network, which could influence market perceptions and valuations.

Market participants are closely monitoring these developments, as they suggest a positive outlook for both Ethereum and Solana’s economic models. The increase in staking activity is typically seen as an indicator of network strength and user confidence, potentially impacting the price dynamics of their native tokens.

Key Takeaways

Ethereum’s staking has reached a record 43.8 million ETH, locking up 35.9% of its supply.
Solana has 69% of its total supply staked, suggesting increased confidence in its network.
Market participants may view these developments as consistent with a supportive environment for both Ethereum and Solana.

What to Watch
Observers will be attentive to how Ethereum and Solana’s network upgrades and staking developments influence their respective market prices. Any further increase in staking participation could indicate continued confidence in these networks. Additionally, regulatory developments and technological upgrades, such as Solana’s Alpenglow activation, could also play a crucial role in shaping market expectations and outcomes.

Term Structure

Contract
Odds
Δ since publish
Volume 24h

November 1 2026
0.5%
0.0¢
$70
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November 1 2026
3.4%
0.0¢
$506
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November 1 2026
11%
-3.5¢
$2K
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November 1 2026
2%
-0.1¢
$3K
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November 1 2026
0.2%
-0.2¢
$20
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November 1 2026
0.6%
0.0¢
$629
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November 1 2026
1.1%
0.0¢
—
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November 1 2026
1.8%
0.0¢
$827
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November 1 2026
1.1%
0.0¢
$659
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November 1 2026
0.1%
0.0¢
$195
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November 1 2026
0.1%
0.0¢
$7K
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November 1 2026
7%
0.0¢
$2K
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November 1 2026
0.4%
0.0¢
$406
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November 1 2026
1.8%
+0.2¢
$2K
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November 1 2026
52%
-2¢
$6K
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Updated 5min ago

In brief
Wallets tied to the April 1 Drift exploit deposited 25,700 Ethereum, worth about $61.56 million, into Tornado Cash over two hours on Tuesday.
Arkham data shows the exploiter's 71 tracked addresses still hold 81,454 ETH, worth roughly $198 million, after a first 23,095 ETH round in July.
Drift's DFX recovery pool held about 3.1 million USDT when claims opened Oct. 1, paying early redeemers roughly a penny per dollar lost.
Wallets tied to April's $295 million Drift Protocol exploit pushed 25,700 Ethereum, worth about $61.56 million, into the crypto mixer Tornado Cash over roughly two hours on Tuesday. The addresses had been quiet for about two months before the burst.

Transfer data from Arkham Intelligence shows the deposits landing in batches of 100 ETH, about $237,800 each, plus smaller 10 ETH chunks. Those sizes match the mixer's fixed deposit pools, which let users pull funds out later from fresh addresses and break the public link between sender and receiver.

Myriad: Where does Ethereum go next? Click to make your prediction.Arkham's entity page, which tracks 71 addresses linked to the attacker, still shows 81,454 ETH sitting in those wallets after Tuesday's deposits, worth roughly $198.58 million at current prices. Besides that ETH stash, the wallet holds around $561.6K in other coins like USDT, USDC, Solana, and USDY.

Tuesday's deposits follow a first round on July 23 and 24, when an address labeled Drift Exploiter 4 sent about 23,095 ETH, then worth around $44.4 million, into the same mixer.

Drift exploiter wallet movements. Image: ArkhamThe April 1 exploit hit Drift's vaults on Solana after the attacker gained admin powers, introduced a fake token and used it to borrow out real liquidity. Drift's own asset breakdown puts the haul at $295.7 million, led by $159.3 million in JLP—the Jupiter Liquidity Provider token—and $71.4 million in USDC, most of which was later swapped and bridged to Ethereum.

Arkham's portfolio view still lists exactly one Fartcoin in the exploiter's holdings, worth about 15 cents, a long way from the $4.1 million in Fartcoin that Drift says was taken in April.

Drift said in April that the attack was a six-month operation in which the group posed as a quantitative trading firm, met contributors in person and deposited $1 million of its own money to build trust. In June, Drift said forensic firm Mandiant attributed the attack to UNC6862, a North Korean threat group.

Drift, whose relaunched exchange now runs as Velocity, opened claims for its DFX recovery token on Oct. 1, issuing one token for every USDT of verified loss, about 299.5 million in total. The recovery pool held about 3.1 million USDT at launch, so early redemptions paid roughly 0.0104 USDT per token, or about a penny on the dollar.

The pool gets a daily cut of between 60% and 90% of Velocity's net protocol revenue, scaling up as daily revenue grows, and Tether has committed up to 127.5 million USDT toward the relaunch and recovery. Any stolen funds recovered through freezes, the bounty, or law enforcement also go into the pool.

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Bitcoin holds near $82,000 as Ethereum lags and Solana, Aerodrome and Ondo edge higher. October 20 analysis tracks key support, resistance, and daily signals.

Asset
Aggregate USD price
Rolling 24-hour change
Aggregate 24-hour volume

Bitcoin (BTC)
$82,013
−0.48%
$25.37 billion

Ethereum (ETH)
$2,410.99
−0.43%
$9.21 billion

Solana (SOL)
$105.17
+0.08%
$2.56 billion

Aerodrome Finance (AERO)
$0.808417
+1.20%
$44.09 million

Ondo (ONDO)
$0.441386
+1.58%
$100.25 million

Bitcoin’s MACD Improves Without a Bullish Crossover
Bitcoin closed October 19 at $81,843.70, down 0.19%, after reaching $83,100. The session traded above the $82,538–$82,826 resistance area identified in Monday’s report but failed to hold above it at the close. That was an intraday move through resistance, not a confirmed daily breakout.

BTC/USD daily MACD (12,26,9) remains below its signal despite a less-negative histogram, while the latest session fails to close above $83,100.
Daily MACD, using 12- and 26-period exponential averages with a nine-period signal EMA, remained bearish. Its line fell to −10.68 against a 393.08 signal.

The histogram improved to −403.76 from −456.84, indicating a narrowing gap between the lines rather than a bullish crossover. The MACD line also crossed below zero on the completed candle.

The latest completed four-hour histogram was positive at 73.83, showing stronger short-term momentum than the daily reading.

CoinGecko’s quote was nevertheless 0.50% below Monday’s $82,428 report snapshot, a separate comparison from its rolling 24-hour change.

A daily close above $83,100 would strengthen a recovery toward $84,049–$84,250, the cluster of October 12–14 highs.

Losing $81,648 on a daily close would weaken the latest rebound and expose $80,568. A close below the October 15 low at $79,709 would invalidate that recovery structure.

Ethereum’s RSI Remains Below Neutral
Ethereum closed at $2,405.43, slipping 0.09% after a $2,382.78–$2,443.70 session. The daily chart remains below the October 16 high at $2,490.84 and the earlier $2,527–$2,535 resistance area, leaving the broader October pullback intact.

ETH/USD daily RSI (14, Wilder) holds at 37.87 as Ethereum trades below $2,443.70 resistance and above the October 15 low at $2,313.42.
The 14-day RSI, calculated with Wilder smoothing, eased to 37.87 from 38.03. It remained below the neutral 50 line without reaching the conventional 30 oversold threshold.

This points to weak momentum, not a standalone signal that a rebound is due. Four-hour RSI was firmer at 47.54 but also below neutral.

Ethereum’s aggregate quote was 0.60% below the $2,425.66 snapshot in the October 17 edition.

The earlier downside reference at $2,313.42 remains intact, although subsequent sessions have not produced a sustained recovery.

A daily close above $2,443.70 would improve the immediate structure and bring $2,490.84 into focus. Clearing that second level would strengthen the case for a test of $2,527–$2,535.

Conversely, a close below $2,382.78 would expose $2,354.01 and $2,326.25. Losing $2,313.42 on a daily close would invalidate the developing base.

Solana Rebounds Beneath Two Falling Averages
Solana gained 0.89% on its completed daily candle to close at $104.95. That extended the recovery from Sunday’s $100.34 low, but the close remained below the 50-day exponential moving average at $106.75 and the 20-day EMA at $108.96.

SOL/USD daily candles recover from $100.34 but remain below declining 20-day and 50-day EMAs at $108.96 and $106.75.
Both averages declined from the previous session. The faster 20-day average remained above the 50-day average, so the chart did not produce a new bearish crossover.

The relevant signal is simpler: price remains beneath two falling trend references.

Four-hour price action was less weak. The latest completed close stood above its 20-period EMA at $104.28 but below the 50-period EMA at $106.01.

This supports a short-term rebound interpretation without overturning the daily trend.

A daily close above Monday’s $106.08 high would put the 50-day EMA in reach. A subsequent close above $108.91–$108.96, where the October 13 high meets the 20-day EMA, would materially improve the recovery toward $111.92–$113.27.

Failure to hold $103.43 would weaken that scenario and bring $101.00 into view. A daily close below $100.34 would invalidate the latest rebound.

Aerodrome Loses Support Despite Its 24-Hour Gain
Aerodrome’s positive rolling return contrasts with a weaker completed daily chart. It closed October 19 at $0.7957, down 0.39%, following Sunday’s close below $0.8300. The October 16 report had identified that level as the invalidation point for the earlier recovery.

AERO Price Analysis 2026 10 20
The latest aggregate quote was 12.08% below that report’s $0.919539 snapshot. This is a multi-day comparison, not the coin’s current 24-hour performance.

Daily Bollinger Bands, using a 20-day simple moving average and two population standard deviations, placed the midpoint at $0.8516 and the lower band at $0.7481.

Price remained below the midpoint but inside the bands. The reading shows a weakened recovery, not an automatic buy signal near the lower band.

Monday’s $0.7636 low nearly matched the October 2 low at $0.7635, establishing a visible support test.

A daily close above $0.8090 would be an initial improvement; reclaiming $0.8516–$0.8574 would recover the band midpoint and Sunday’s high, strengthening a move toward $0.9045.

A close below $0.7635 would invalidate the support hold and expose the lower-band reference near $0.7481, which will change with subsequent closes.

Ondo Tests the First Retracement of Its Latest Decline
Ondo closed at $0.43493, up 0.10%, after recovering from Sunday’s $0.41049 low. The rebound remained small relative to the decline from the October 12 swing high at $0.53150.

AERO/USD daily Bollinger Bands show price below the $0.8516 midpoint after losing $0.8300 support, with repeated lows near $0.7635.
Fibonacci levels measure an upward retracement of that specific October 12–18 downswing.

The 23.6% level is $0.43905, 38.2% is $0.45672, the 50% midpoint is $0.47100 and 61.8% is $0.48527. Monday’s completed close remained below the first level.

The live October 20 Kraken candle subsequently reached $0.44373 and last traded at $0.44139 in the captured response.

That put price above 23.6% intraday, but it did not confirm a daily close above the retracement.

A daily close above $0.44496, Sunday’s high, would strengthen the rebound toward $0.45672.

Clearing that level would improve the approach to $0.47100 and the October 16 high at $0.47649. A daily close below $0.42764 would weaken the immediate recovery, with $0.42200 and $0.41049 next.

A new low below $0.41049 would invalidate these retracement anchors and require recalculation.

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Glamsterdam is scheduled to go live on the Hoodi testnet next week. Hoodi will run the same raised gas limit already tested on Sepolia. Ethereum developers have not yet set a mainnet date. ETH is sitting on support formed by its 200-day average and a Fibonacci level. Ethereum’s Glamsterdam upgrade will activate on the Hoodi testnet on October 26 at 17:42:48 UTC, the Ethereum Foundation confirmed in its October 16 Hoodi announcement, and Hoodi’s block gas limit will climb to 200 million at the same epoch. The date lands while ETH trades near $2,381, roughly 15% under its late-September peak and parked on a support band around $2,310 that has caught every dip for a week. Hoodi exists mostly for validator and staking operations, which means mainnet users see no change yet, though a clean fork there is the last public step before developers commit to a mainnet slot.

Hoodi Gets 200M Gas Before Mainnet Does Activation is set for epoch 132,352, slot 4,235,264, twenty days after Glamsterdam went live on Sepolia, whose first public testnet activation already ran the same 200 million gas limit. Every Hoodi operator has to upgrade both execution and consensus clients before the deadline. The Foundation’s release table still showed blanks for some execution clients when the post went live, with go-ethereum, Ethereum’s most widely used execution client, among those still waiting for a confirmed build.

Glamsterdam Rollout

Aug 20, 2026

Platåberget Early testing

Oct 6, 2026

Sepolia Activated

Oct 26, 2026 · 17:42 UTC

Hoodi + 200M gas Scheduled

Date not set

Ethereum mainnet Pending

Source: Ethereum Foundation

Bigger Blocks, Same 12 Seconds A higher gas limit lets each block carry more computation, yet every node still has to execute and verify that work inside one twelve-second slot, and pushing more into that window without other changes raises hardware costs until smaller validators drop out. Glamsterdam tackles the problem from the way blocks are built, the way they are checked and the price of the operations inside them.

EIP-7732 moves proposer-builder separation into the consensus rules. Most validators currently hand block construction to specialised builders through relay software that Ethereum’s protocol does not govern. Under the new model a builder commits to a payload, the proposer signs the block around that commitment and the protocol itself checks whether the payload showed up on time, which buys validators extra time to process heavier blocks. The concentration of block building among a few sophisticated firms survives the change, and developers still list it as a risk to watch.

EIP-7928 adds a block-level access list, a record of every account and storage slot a block’s transactions touch together with the resulting changes. Clients today only find that out by running transactions one after another. A node holding the list can pull state from disk in parallel and rebuild the state root with much less sequential work, so a larger block does not have to become a slower one.

Pricing is handled by EIP-8037 and EIP-8038, which reset the gas charged for creating and reading state such as balances, contract storage and deployed code, and several of those operations get more expensive. In its May 2026 protocol update the Foundation tied the 200 million figure to these three changes working together, calling it a credible post-upgrade floor against roughly 60 million on mainnet today. That gas budget is about 3.3 times larger, although transaction counts will not scale by the same factor, because Glamsterdam also rewrites how intrinsic gas is counted and real blocks mix cheap transfers with heavy DeFi calls.

The Contracts That Hardcoded Gas Foundation researchers replayed historical mainnet transactions under the new schedule for an August 24 repricing report and found that the vast majority behaved exactly as before. The small group that diverged ran from transactions that merely burned a different amount of gas to a handful of contracts that kept failing even with a much higher limit. Contracts that fix gas allowances in their code or assume how much gas is left mid-execution carry the most exposure, and developers can check individual addresses with the repricing impact checker before mainnet. The report flags no direct threat to user funds, yet it is the main reason Hoodi carries more weight than the gas headline suggests.

$2,310 Is Where Two Supports Meet On the daily chart, the pullback from the $2,809 high has carried ETH into the area where the 200-day EMA at $2,314 almost overlaps with the 0.382 Fibonacci retracement of the June to September rally at $2,311. Traders tend to treat that kind of overlap as a serious line, because the 200-day EMA tracks the long-term trend and the 0.382 level marks the depth where corrections inside an uptrend usually attract buyers.

ETH/USDT daily chart by Alexander Stefanov on TradingView Several daily candles over the past week dipped toward $2,320 and left long lower wicks before closing higher, showing bids parked inside the zone. Volume backs that up, since the heaviest selling came with the early October break below $2,600 and the daily bars have since shrunk to some of their lightest readings in two months, with the October 20 session at about 71,000 ETH by midday. When a decline loses volume on its way into major support, it usually means sellers are running out of urgency rather than starting a fresh wave of distribution.

Momentum has yet to confirm a turn, with the 14-day RSI at 35.7, below its signal line at 39.5 and still sloping down, which leaves room for one more push toward the 30 area where ETH bottomed in June. The golden cross from late August holds, with the 50-day EMA about $165 above the 200-day, but the 50-day at $2,479 has started to roll over just under the 0.236 retracement at $2,502, making the $2,480 to $2,500 band the first ceiling any recovery must clear.

ETH Price Map · daily

$2,809
September high
+18.0%

$2,502
EMA 50 + Fib 0.236
+5.1%

$2,381
Current price
NOW

$2,311
EMA 200 + Fib 0.382
-2.9%

$2,157
Fib 0.5
-9.4%

$1,784
Fib 0.786
-25.1%

Distance from the current price

A daily close back above $2,500 would put ETH back into the range it held for most of September and reopen the way toward $2,600 and the $2,809 high. Losing $2,310 on a closing basis would break both supports in one move and expose the 0.5 retracement at $2,157, with the August breakout base near $1,900 underneath and the 0.786 level at $1,784 as the deeper target if selling picks up speed.

The Burn Rate Is the Real Test A smooth fork on Hoodi would hand client teams the evidence they need to propose a mainnet slot on the All Core Developers calls, where the date gets fixed, while a rough one would stretch a schedule that has already slid from an original June target into the fourth quarter. For ETH holders the harder question arrives after mainnet. More capacity tends to lower the fee per transaction, and with it the amount of ETH burned, unless activity grows fast enough to fill the bigger blocks. Much of Ethereum’s usage already lives on layer-2 networks that have no built-in reason to move back to a cheaper base layer, so gas utilization, fee revenue and the burn rate in the weeks after activation will show whether the extra room gets used.

Early December has come up in developer planning discussions as a possible mainnet window, though the Foundation has not confirmed any date and the Hoodi results will weigh on that decision. Planning for Hegotà, the upgrade lined up to follow Glamsterdam, is already running in parallel according to the same May protocol update.

Wall Street’s Deposits Land on Layer 1 In separate news, JPMorgan said on October 19 that it is bringing JPM Coin to the Ethereum mainnet, extending its dollar deposit token beyond Base, where it has been available to institutional clients since November 2025. JPMD is a claim on money held at the bank rather than a reserve-backed stablecoin, so it can carry interest, and only approved institutional wallets can hold or transfer it. The move puts bank cash on the same chain as JPMorgan’s tokenized money market funds, including JLTXX, which went live on Ethereum in May with $100 million committed at launch. The bank has not disclosed how much JPMD it expects to issue on mainnet, and the near-term effect on ETH demand may stay small, since a large institutional settlement consumes the same gas as a modest transfer.

Alex is a financial markets journalist and co-founder of Millennial Media Group, and he's spent close to ten years trying to answer one stubborn question: what's really driving this? It started in 2016, when Bitcoin refused to make sense to him - and rather than shrug, he stayed with it until it did. That patience became his method. He's less interested in what an asset is doing today than in the plumbing behind it: how liquidity flows, where risk hides, what a chart is quietly telling you that the headline isn't. That lens eventually stretched well past crypto into traditional markets, because the same forces - fear, leverage, incentives, timing - show up everywhere once you know how to look. Most coverage, in his view, insults the reader by stopping at the surface. Price up, price down, moving on. He'd rather leave someone genuinely understanding a move than merely informed that it happened. His path into markets ran through a Tourism degree at New Bulgarian University - proof, maybe, that curiosity beats credentials. With more than 200 deep analyses and over 10,000 articles behind him, he still walks away from most trading days having learned something he didn't know that morning.

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