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DWF Maas and Falcon Digital say BitGo disposed of discounted Falcon Finance and ESPORTS tokens while lock-ups were still running.

DWF Labs affiliates sue BitGo over alleged early token sales

Posted October 9, 2026 at 9:24 am ET.

Two firms affiliated with market maker DWF Labs have sued crypto custodian BitGo in London’s High Court for $141 million, alleging BitGo sold discounted tokens before the agreed lock-ups ended, the Financial Times reported. The claimants are DWF Maas, based in the British Virgin Islands, and Panama-based Falcon Digital. Neither BitGo nor DWF immediately responded to requests for comment from Unchained

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What the Claim Alleges The claim says BitGo received Falcon Finance (FF) tokens at a reduced price and agreed to hold them for three months, with more vesting restrictions after that. DWF says a matching structure covered ESPORTS tokens, which are used in gaming. Over-the-counter sales let projects bring in funds privately instead of selling into the market, with buyers paying less in exchange for holding.

DWF reportedly said in a statement that the discount was “conditional on the tokens remaining locked” and that the tokens “were moved to exchanges roughly two months before the first unlock.” It said it raised the issue with BitGo in April and May, and that court action followed when BitGo offered no undertaking. “We remain hopeful of, and open to, resolution,” DWF reportedly said in the same statement.

DWF says the holding periods were intended to let it build products that would make the tokens easier to trade. DWF says the sell-offs left the FF and ESPORTS tokens it continues to hold worth less. It says in the filing there is “no contractual or other legal excuse for BitGo’s conduct in transferring or selling” them. The FT reported, based on CoinMarketCap figures, that FF traded at $0.08 in early March and about $0.07 by late April. By early June, when DWF alleges BitGo sold, ESPORTS stood at $0.07, down from about $0.28 in mid-March.

Related Listen: How OpenAI’s Math Dump Has Crypto Rethinking Its Cryptography: Uneasy Money

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One of DeFi's strangest perps experiments is about to go live.

Papertrade, a perpetuals exchange built on HyperEVM (Hyperliquid's smart contract layer) and co-founded by popular, "semi-pseudonymous" traders Jez and Blurr, opened pre-deposits yesterday with live trading slated fatefully for tomorrow, Oct. 10, the anniversary of crypto’s monumental crash last year.

When we broke down Papertrade in May, the pitch sounded outlandish: up to 1000x leverage, no slippage or funding payments, and a token, PAPER, that traders earn by losing.

Five months later, here's a quick refresher on how it works, how Saturday's rollout will unfold, and a glimpse into the ecosystem already forming around it.

— (@)

How Papertrade Works Papertrade is essentially a casino where losing traders gradually become owners of the house's future earnings.

Instead of matching traders through an order book or using outside market makers, Papertrade takes the other side of every trade through a shared USDC pool, called a Martingaler LP, a pool that starts empty at $0 and fills from traders' losses.

This LP is its real innovation and works like such:

Place a trade: Deposit USDC ($10 minimum plus a one-time $1 activation fee), then bet on BTC or ETH at up to 1000x leverage.

Win and get paid: If your trade is profitable, you get your original collateral back, plus profits from the pool. If the pool runs short, unpaid profits wait in a first-come, first-served queue. For example, if you're owed $100 and the next trader loses $60, you get $60 and wait for the remaining $40.

Lose and earn PAPER: If your position loses money or gets liquidated, the losses fund the pool and mint PAPER, which you receive, initially at up to 100 tokens per $1 of qualifying losses while the pool holds less than $2M. That rate declines as the pool grows.

Stake PAPER: You can then stake your PAPER to earn a share of the exchange's trading fees in USDC. Once the pool exceeds $5M, additional pool gains can also go to stakers.

These are just the basic mechanics, so if you want to dig deeper, I'd highly recommend reading our original article and Papertrade's docs for a more holistic view of the protocol.

How Papertrade Turns Liquidations Into Ownership on Bankless

A new perps exchange pioneers one of crypto’s strangest and most innovative trading mechanisms yet.

Bankless

How Launch Weekend Will Play Out Expect a gradual rollout rather than everyone trading at once given the HyperEVM will likely get congested from all the activity.

In anticipation of this, Papertrade set out several launch phases:

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Phase 0 (Thursday): Pre-deposits, as mentioned, opened yesterday and remain open until launch. Depositing early doesn't improve trading priority, but funding an account after launch may mean you experience delays as a result of the chain's congestion.

Phase 1 (Saturday): Trading begins through Papertrade's website, where approved services submit trades you've signed onchain: a feature meant to limit bots' ability to jump the line. Liquidations take priority over new positions, and smaller trades may wait longer.

Later phases: Bots and AI agents will be able to trade directly, third-party apps can earn fees for bringing in traders, and PAPER will eventually become transferable. It can't be sold at launch.

Trading is expected to start roughly an hour after a HyperEVM upgrade expected Saturday, though an exact time hasn't been announced and there's a small chance it slips to Sunday.

Who's Lining Up to Trade If you aren't yourself a trader, an ecosystem is already forming around Papertrade, offering other ways to partake in the mayhem. For example:

DX Research Group / DXAP: The team behind DX Terminal runs DXAP, an invite-only app that lets AI agents trade users' Hyperliquid accounts. Founder poof says its Superclip agent plans to trade with DXAP users' funds, though exactly how remains unclear.

PaperStrategy: Then there's PaperStrategy, an anonymous project using 90% of a 10% tax on trades of its PSTR token to fund strategies that accumulate and stake PAPER. Of the resulting USDC staking revenue, 90% buys back and burns PSTR, while 10% goes to the team.

PaperDAO: PaperDAO raised funds through daos.world on Oct. 7 and pooled users' money into one treasury, which plans to farm PAPER at launch and stake it for USDC revenue. Its PULP token represents a proportional share of the treasury, redeemable for PAPER once transfers are enabled.

— (@)

The Bottom Line For all the energy around it, there are plenty of risks to be aware of:

Delayed payouts: If too many traders win, the pool could run short of money, leaving profitable traders waiting indefinitely for payouts.

Price manipulation: Manipulated Hyperliquid prices (which effectively act as an oracle for positions on Papertrade) could allow traders to extract money unfairly from the pool.

PAPER farming: As Delphi Digital's tempest calls out, paired long and short positions could let traders mint PAPER cheaply, diluting existing holders without adding nearly as much cash to the pool. PAPER itself may also never be worth what traders spend acquiring it.

Extreme leverage: At 1000x, a roughly 0.1% move against a position could wipe out its margin.

Yet the protocol's incredibly imaginative and the excitement forming around launch clearly indicates this launch should not be ignored. Whether Papertrade ultimately works remains to be seen, but it's refreshing to see something genuinely different come to market.

DeFi could use more experiments like it.

In brief Bitcoin rebounded 1.38% to $82,837 on Friday after dipping to $80,427 on Thursday, while total crypto market cap rose 2% to $2.8 trillion and the Fear & Greed Index fell to a neutral 56. Bitcoin ETFs shed $484.9 million on Wednesday and $244 million on Thursday as the 10-year Treasury yield hit 5.32%, and Fed minutes point to another hike by year-end. Myriad traders give a 67% chance Bitcoin trades at or below $80,000 before October ends. The crypto markets are breathing today, with the total capitalization up 2.1% to $2.89 trillion on Friday. The bounce recovers only part of the damage, since the market stood above $3 trillion a week ago, when Bitcoin was pressing against its yearly high.

Despite the recovery, traders are still nervous. The Fear & Greed Index dropped to 56, a neutral reading, down from the 71 that put sentiment firmly in “greed” territory on October 2.

Myriad: How low will Bitcoin go? Click to make your prediction.Wall Street is also nervous. Bitcoin ETFs alone shed $484.9 million on Wednesday, their worst day since June 25, and a further $244 million on Thursday, according to Decrypt's ETF tracker.

Bitcoin trades around $82,837 on Friday, up 1.38% on the day, after dipping to $80,427 on Thursday, its lowest level since early September.

Bitcoin ETF flows. Image: DecryptThe daily candle opened at $81,711 and has ranged between $81,553 and $83,443. On the four-hour chart, price still trades below the 50-period exponential moving average, so the short-term trend has not turned.

Myriad, a prediction market owned by Decrypt's parent company Dastan, gives a 67% chance that Bitcoin trades at or below $80,000 at some point in October, with 40% odds for $77,500 and 24% for $75,000.

Bitcoin price data. Image: TradingviewA separate weekly market put 49% odds on Bitcoin finishing the week above $87,500 so traders expect a month of price compression with some space for further downside.

The Average Directional Index, or ADX, which measures trend strength regardless of direction, reads 37.9 on the daily chart, well above the 25 level that confirms a real trend. The directional lines show buyers (DI+) above sellers (DI-), so the trend is still bullish even after the pullback.

The Relative Strength Index, or RSI, gauges buying pressure on a scale of 0 to 100, and its 51.2 reading is neutral, just like the Fear and Greed Index. This is worth checking out, because Bitcoin appears to be cooling down after an overbought phase.

Bitwise Europe's Luke Deans told Decrypt that the $83,000 zone combines the average ETF cost basis with the prior higher-high level, which makes it the first test for the bounce.

Reclaiming it would put the price zone at $84,433 in play, while the September high at $87,354.33 remains the ceiling bulls need a daily close above.

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Companies are still buying Bitcoin in 2026. Most of them just aren’t the ones doing it.

Businesses have added 193,000 BTC so far this year, according to a River Financial report published on October 8, 2026. Over the same stretch, individuals were net sellers of 93,000 BTC.

The corporate bid, by the numbers River’s figures put total corporate Bitcoin holdings at 1.64 million BTC. That equals 7.8% of the total Bitcoin supply.

This is the second straight year businesses have been the largest net buyers of Bitcoin, per the report.

Year-to-date business inflows came to $15.7 billion. River’s data shows that is down approximately two-thirds from where things stood at this point in 2025.

The concentration is the real story. Strategy and Strive together added 197,000 BTC, which River says accounts for more than 100% of net business purchases. Strategy alone now holds 848,000 BTC.

Every other Bitcoin treasury company combined contributed just 8,000 BTC.

Miners and individuals move the other way Bitcoin miners are on the opposite side of the trade. River’s report shows miners net sold 32,800 BTC this year.

According to the report, miners sold to fund spending on artificial intelligence infrastructure.

Individuals have had a more complicated year. River’s data shows they were net sellers of approximately 140,000 BTC in the first half of 2026. Then the direction changed.

In the third quarter, individuals flipped to net accumulation of 107,000 BTC. Even with that rebound, the year-to-date total still shows individuals as net sellers of 93,000 BTC.

How we got here River ties the slowdown to fading momentum in Bitcoin treasury strategies after the 2025 crypto bull market. The 2026 numbers show what happens after the party. River’s framing points to reduced demand for the treasury model itself, not just a pause in purchasing.

What this means For anyone watching Bitcoin’s supply and demand, the headline business number can be misleading. A 193,000 BTC net purchase reads like broad institutional adoption. In practice, it reflects the conviction of two companies, offset by net selling from the rest of the corporate field.

The report also suggests corporations may adopt more conservative treasury strategies going forward.

The miner data adds another wrinkle. Selling to fund AI infrastructure means a portion of new Bitcoin supply is being converted into capital for a separate industry. If that shift continues, miner selling may become tied to AI spending cycles rather than just Bitcoin’s own economics.

Their Q3 swing to net buying of 107,000 BTC is the most notable change in direction in the report.

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

Bitcoin moved back toward $83,000 on Friday in a moderate rally, following a challenging week for cryptocurrencies and stocks tied to the sector. While the largest cryptocurrency remains nearly 34% below its all-time high, Friday’s rebound signaled renewed optimism among crypto investors.

Equities tied to crypto show gainsShares of Coinbase, a leading US-based cryptocurrency exchange, advanced by almost 5% during Friday’s trading session. Strategy, the publicly listed firm led by Michael Saylor and better known as a significant institutional holder of Bitcoin, saw its shares gain around 2.2% in premarket activity. Robinhood, an investment platform that allows trading in cryptocurrencies and stocks, also posted increases as investors adopted a selective risk-on approach to crypto-linked equities.

Bitcoin itself climbed around 1% to 1.5% over the previous 24 hours, recovering from a previous decline in which it touched lows near $81,000. This uptick came as global market sentiment improved, and investors looked for opportunities amid volatility.

Impacts of energy markets and macroeconomicsIn the broader markets, Brent crude oil fell about 1.5% to roughly $103 per barrel. The decline in oil prices helped ease short-term inflation fears that have weighed on risk assets, including cryptocurrencies. Lower oil prices can also temper concerns about central banks, such as the Federal Reserve, tightening monetary policy further in response to rising inflation.

Analysts note that moves in energy and bond markets are closely tracked by crypto investors, as higher Treasury yields and energy costs tend to make traditional assets more attractive, putting pressure on digital assets.

Institutional targets and treasury expansionCoinbase remains sensitive to both cryptocurrency price trends and regulatory changes. The company’s revenue depends on trading volumes, institutional product growth, and progress in subscription services. Morgan Stanley recently increased its price target for Coinbase shares from $250 to $258. Conversely, Citizens cut its target from $325 to $280, reflecting differing views on the company’s prospects.

AnalystPrevious Coinbase TargetNew Coinbase TargetMorgan Stanley$250$258Citizens$325$280Strategy, which serves as a proxy investment for Bitcoin exposure, has continued to add to its holdings. The company bought an additional 334 BTC in its most recent purchase, bringing total holdings to 848,000 Bitcoin, according to public disclosures.

Bitcoin previously reached a high of approximately $126,080 in October 2025 but later entered an extended period of correction. The digital asset briefly dropped to about $58,000 during the summer of 2026, yet managed to recover more than 40% from those lows amid fluctuating risk sentiment.

Recent months have seen Bitcoin face resistance as tightening financial conditions and rising Treasury yields make alternative investments comparatively more attractive. Coupled with oil price volatility, these headwinds contributed to a sharp selloff, sending Bitcoin below $83,000 and triggering widespread leveraged liquidations.

Analyst price targets and technical outlookBitcoin’s next technical challenge lies in breaking above the $85,000 to $87,000 price band, where previous recovery rallies have lost momentum.

Citigroup raised its 12-month Bitcoin price forecast to $113,000, indicating some institutional analysts still expect notable upside potential for the world’s leading cryptocurrency.

Citigroup raised its 12-month Bitcoin target to $113,000, signifying sustained institutional confidence despite recent volatility.

Additionally, QCP Capital, a digital asset trading firm, described the $80,000 to $82,000 area as an attractive potential entry point, according to insights featured in Coinpaper’s latest Bitcoin outlook.

Market participants continue to watch technical and macroeconomic signals closely, seeking clues about the next direction for both crypto asset prices and related stocks.

Mini dictionary: QCP Capital, a Singapore-based trading and investment firm specializing in digital asset derivatives, is known for providing institutional-grade liquidity and analytics in the cryptocurrency market.

Fireblocks’ research chief has identified exposed public keys as the main factor in Bitcoin’s future quantum risk, citing public estimates that roughly 6.7 million to 7 million BTC sit behind keys already visible onchain.

Summary

Older Bitcoin outputs and reused addresses can leave funds behind public keys that are already exposed. Fireblocks recommends fresh deposit and change addresses, with continuous tracking of exposed balances. Bitcoin’s BIP 360 proposal reduces long-term key exposure but does not provide complete quantum protection. Fireblocks has cut Ethereum post-quantum signature verification from 8.09 million to 1.23 million gas. Fireblocks Vice President of Research Michael Gutkin told crypto.news that a holder’s exposure depends on the blockchain, address type, and transaction history, rather than whether the owner is an exchange, institution, or individual.

“Exposure ultimately comes down to whether the public key is already visible onchain.”

In Gutkin’s assessment, frequent transactions can create exposure through address reuse and the handling of unspent Bitcoin. A treasury that rarely moves its holdings may keep public keys hidden for longer, he said, but only if the address format and previous activity have not already revealed them.

Bitcoin’s older outputs and reused addresses expose keys For early Bitcoin outputs known as pay-to-public-key, or P2PK, Gutkin explained that the public key is visible from the start. Many outputs dating to the Satoshi era use that format, leaving their keys exposed even when the coins have never moved, he said.

By comparison, Gutkin said pay-to-public-key-hash and native SegWit addresses, known as P2PKH and P2WPKH, hide the public key until the first spend. Once a holder spends from an address, however, the key becomes permanently visible, according to his explanation.

If the same address receives more Bitcoin afterward, Gutkin said those new funds sit behind a key that has already been revealed. For holders checking their exposure, he recommended examining whether addresses have spent before and whether they continue receiving funds.

Taproot introduces another distinction. The authors of BIP 360 identify Taproot outputs as exposed to long-duration quantum attacks because their output public keys are visible when created.

According to the proposal, a sufficiently capable quantum computer could derive a private key from an exposed public key. Its authors distinguish attacks against keys visible for long periods from faster attacks attempted after a transaction reveals a key but before it confirms.

The concern remains a future threat. In a Sep. 17 report on Bitcoin’s migration challenges, Ledger Chief Technology Officer Charles Guillemet said no cryptographically relevant quantum computer capable of breaking Bitcoin’s current signatures was known to exist.

Guillemet nevertheless warned that research, software changes, hardware-wallet upgrades and user adoption could take years, making preparation a separate issue from the arrival of a working attacker.

Gradual wallet changes can reduce Bitcoin exposure Responding to calls for “bunker mode” preparation, Gutkin argued that institutions should manage public-key exposure continuously rather than plan a single mass transfer.

“For an institution, I don’t think the goal should be a one-time mass migration,” he said.

Under his proposed approach, new Bitcoin deposits would go to fresh addresses, while change from transactions would also return to fresh addresses. Gutkin said institutions should track individual unspent transaction outputs, or UTXOs, to identify which funds already sit behind exposed keys.

Through normal spending, Gutkin explained, exposed addresses could gradually empty while new funds arrive at addresses whose public keys remain hidden. He said a live exposure dashboard should show both the remaining exposed balance and the transactions creating additional exposure.

Fireblocks already supports several components of that process, according to Gutkin, and is developing tools for selecting transaction inputs based on exposure and displaying affected balances.

Other custody providers have introduced related controls. In its July 22 announcement, BitGo detailed four Bitcoin wallet controls covering exposure scoring, address remediation, transaction-input selection, and updated address defaults.

BitGo said its input-selection method attempts to spend all unspent outputs associated with a selected address, reducing the chance of leaving funds behind after a transaction reveals the key. The company described the controls as operational preparation rather than a replacement for a future Bitcoin upgrade.

For a rushed migration, Gutkin warned that large holders competing for limited Bitcoin transaction capacity could drive fees higher and slow confirmations. Within institutions, he said, additional transactions and approvals could increase mistakes, including sending change back to an exposed address.

To limit phishing and handling errors, Gutkin recommended establishing destination addresses, approval policies and trusted communication channels in advance. He said an urgent transfer should not require customers or staff to follow unfamiliar instructions or bypass existing controls.

Bitcoin still needs a quantum-resistant spending method Even with better address practices, Gutkin said Bitcoin would still need a quantum-resistant method for authorizing transactions.

In his explanation, BIP 360 addresses one part of the problem by proposing pay-to-Merkle-root outputs, which remove Taproot’s exposed key-spending path. Gutkin stressed that reducing long-term public-key exposure does not make the proposal a complete post-quantum solution.

The proposal’s authors likewise state that protection against attacks during the brief period before a transaction confirms may require post-quantum signatures. BIP 360 remains listed as a draft.

Unlike Ethereum, Gutkin said Bitcoin cannot simply accept a new signature-verification contract through a general-purpose application layer. Depending on the chosen design, he explained, protocol changes may be necessary to support the scheme and keep transaction fees manageable.

Gutkin also pointed to research into hash-based signatures, including designs that track signing state to reduce overhead. Such approaches involve trade-offs in signature size, wallet design and recordkeeping, he said.

For U.S. investors holding Bitcoin through funds, custody arrangements are also part of the preparation. A Sep. 23 report on Coinbase’s post-quantum custody plans noted that spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETF investors do not control the private keys securing fund holdings; the issuers’ selected custodians manage them.

In that report, Coinbase Chief Cryptographer Yehuda Lindell described plans for custody infrastructure capable of supporting different post-quantum signature schemes. Lindell said Coinbase was exploring programmable hardware security modules as an alternative when a blockchain’s chosen scheme cannot work with its existing distributed-signing systems.

Ethereum’s cheaper verification still requires wallet changes On Ethereum, Gutkin said standard accounts expose their public keys once they sign a transaction because the key can be recovered from the signature. Unlike Bitcoin address rotation, he explained, regularly replacing an Ethereum account is less practical because balances, token approvals and application activity are tied to it.

For Solana’s standard wallets, Gutkin noted that the address is the public key itself, so the key is exposed without any initial spending transaction.

Programmable Ethereum accounts offer a way to change transaction authorization while retaining the account, according to Gutkin. Fireblocks’ research has reduced verification of ML-DSA-44, a post-quantum signature scheme, from 8.09 million gas to 1.23 million gas.

In a Sep. 2 research post, Fireblocks reported that the verifier follows FIPS 204, the digital-signature standard published by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology. Gutkin said the team improved the implementation rather than changing the standardized algorithm.

Among the changes, Gutkin identified more efficient hashing, mathematical operations, signature decoding, public-key handling, and memory use. Peak memory consumption fell from nearly a megabyte to about 41 kilobytes, he said.

The design still carries costs. Gutkin put the one-time deployment cost for the expanded public key at roughly 4.1 million gas, alongside the 1.23 million gas required for each verification.

For a treasury or cold wallet making relatively few transactions, Gutkin said those costs may be reasonable. He cautioned that a standard Ethereum account cannot simply switch to ML-DSA, while smart-account integration, custody support and compatibility with decentralized applications still require engineering work.

Gutkin also said the verifier does not make Ethereum’s entire system post-quantum secure, with separate research continuing at its consensus and data layers.

Despite extensive testing and formal verification, Gutkin said Fireblocks’ implementation remains research code requiring audits and hardening before production use. For institutional custody, he added, the company is separately researching production-grade post-quantum signing systems.

Just one transaction can compromise years of discreet Bitcoin activity, Cake Wallet’s chief operating officer has warned. 

Speaking on the Bitcoin Rails podcast this week, activist Seth for Privacy talked about different ways of protecting one’s privacy when using Bitcoin and said that focusing on privacy was a must for the West. 

Bitcoin privacy is a hot topic again ever since the developers of private coin mixer Samourai Wallet went on trial last year and were subsequently imprisoned. 

But just this week, the U.S. Department of Treasury scrapped two long-stalled crypto surveillance proposals, handing a major win to privacy advocates and the digital asset industry.

“If you ever spend your no-KYC coins with one of your KYC coins — which if you just let the wallet do its thing, it could do because it doesn’t know the difference — you immediately connect all of the non-KYC Bitcoin that you spend in that with your identity,” Seth said, referring to UTXO management, also called “coin control” by some wallets. 

Bitcoin wallets don’t hold a single balance but a collection of separate unspent transaction outputs — UTXOs — each one a discrete “coin” from a specific past transaction. 

When you send a payment larger than any one UTXO, the wallet picks several and combines them as inputs to the same transaction — an easy mistake to make, Seth highlighted. 

Seth added that unlike in the global South, where people have experienced more oppressive states, citizens in the West will need to “feel pain” in order to realize how important privacy is.

Still, he added that attitudes were changing and people were getting more serious about protecting their privacy. 

“It has been shifting, in the last five or six years a lot of people — even in the West — are starting to think [privacy] really matters, we really need to think about this seriously now,” he said. 

Cake Wallet is a privacy-oriented, self-custody, open-source wallet. The wallet earlier this year integrated Bitcoin’s Lightning Network into its platform. 

Using the second layer solution is not only faster and cheaper, it also offers more privacy than Bitcoin’s main chain. 

While Cake Wallet supports other cryptocurrencies, including privacy coin Monero, Seth for Privacy added that he’d love it if the digital coin didn’t exist. 

“If Bitcoin’s privacy got good enough that you could use it and have at least almost as good privacy as Monero without massive hoops to jump through, and Monero ceased to exist, that’s fine,” he said. 

“I would much rather the thing that more people use has better privacy than a more niche tool that has perfect privacy, and that’s something that less people are using because it’s less well known.”

Mathew Di Salvo

Mathew is a reporter who's covered the space since 2019, reporting on everything from Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele's Bitcoin bet to crypto exchange FTX's bankruptcy.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said the American authorities will soon seize $1 billion in crypto from Iran. 

Speaking on Newsmax’s NPolicy Summit in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, Bessent added that economic sanctions on the Middle Eastern country were working. 

Iran has been using bitcoin — and other cryptocurrencies — to skirt around U.S. sanctions. The U.S. in April started targeting crypto wallets linked to the Iranian regime, Bessent said at the time. 

“What we have done has never been seen before,” Bessent said Thursday on Iranian sanctions. 

“We’re probably going to seize $1 billion of crypto this week,” he continued. “We know where it is. We are isolating them. We did have a maximum pressure campaign, now we have an absolute isolation campaign and it’s working.”

Bessent didn’t reveal what cryptocurrencies the U.S. will seize or how. 

It would be very hard — if not impossible — for the U.S. to freeze Iran’s bitcoin unless it keeps it on a centralized exchange. 

Bitcoin, being censorship resistant, cannot be frozen. But many other cryptocurrencies, including Tether’s USDT, can. Bessent previously said the feds had seized Iran’s crypto in the form of the popular stablecoin. 

Iran started a bitcoin-backed insurance service for its counties shipping companies earlier this year.

The Financial Times last month reported that the Middle Eastern country was using bitcoin to settle cross-border transactions through Iranian crypto exchanges after the central bank advised its countrymen to do anything necessary to help the economy.    

U.S. President Donald Trump revived his “maximum pressure” campaign weeks after returning to office. A national security memorandum signed in February 2025 put the Treasury on a sustained campaign against Iran’s shadow banking, money laundering and sanctions-evasion networks.

Mathew Di Salvo

Mathew is a reporter who's covered the space since 2019, reporting on everything from Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele's Bitcoin bet to crypto exchange FTX's bankruptcy.

Table of contents

Meanwhile, the first life insurer licensed to operate entirely in Bitcoin, has raised $37.5 million in new funding led by Bain Capital Crypto, according to the company’s announcement. The Bermuda-based insurer, which counts Sam Altman among its backers, said the round takes its total funding past $180 million as demand for Bitcoin-denominated life insurance grows among wealthy families outside the United States.

The round was led by Bain Capital Crypto, with participation from existing investors Haun Ventures, Framework Ventures, Pantera Capital, Apollo, Northwestern Mutual Future Ventures and Morgan Creek Digital. It follows a surge in international demand for the firm’s policies, particularly across Asia, Europe and the Middle East amid broader macro instability.

What the New Capital Backs Meanwhile plans to direct the funding toward its BTC Life 1-Pay policy, a single-premium whole life product built for high-net-worth clients outside the US that launched in early 2026. It is the company’s second product line after BTC 10-Pay, which is designed for US taxpayers. Since launch, Meanwhile has signed 15 brokers serving wealthy families, including in the insurance hubs of Singapore, Hong Kong, the UAE and Switzerland, with partners such as Lioner and Apeiron Group.

How Bitcoin Life Insurance Works A client pays one premium in Bitcoin and receives a guaranteed death benefit in Bitcoin for life. The policy’s value grows in Bitcoin, and after the first year the owner can borrow up to 90% of it with no repayment schedule and no margin calls. Policies can be owned by individuals, trusts or companies, making them a fit for estate planning as institutional adoption of Bitcoin broadens.

Meanwhile’s balance sheet, reserves and audited financial statements are all denominated in Bitcoin, and all policyholder Bitcoin is held with regulated institutional custodians. “Wealthy families around the world already hold Bitcoin. What they haven’t had is a regulated way to pass it on,” said Zac Townsend, co-founder and chief executive of Meanwhile.

What Happens Next The company said net long-term underwriting income has already passed last year’s total and is on track to more than double in 2026. Meanwhile Insurance Bitcoin (Bermuda) Limited holds the first Class IILT license granted by the Bermuda Monetary Authority, received in July 2024 after two years in the regulator’s sandbox. “Meanwhile owns every layer of a regulated life insurer and builds it like an AI-enabled startup,” said Stefan Cohen, a partner at Bain Capital Crypto. The raise also lands as institutional capital keeps flowing into Bitcoin products, from spot Bitcoin ETF inflows to new tokenized offerings.

AUTHOR

Jide Idowu is a skilled freelance writer with expertise in blockchain technology, cryptocurrency, and digital finance. Known for his ability to break down complex topics into clear, engaging content, Jide crafts articles, blog posts, and analyses that resonate with both beginners and seasoned professionals. His work spans a wide range of subjects, from emerging crypto trends to in-depth explorations of blockchain innovations. With a keen eye for detail and a passion for educating readers, Jide is a reliable voice in the rapidly evolving world of digital assets.

Litecoin Calls Out Reddit's r/CryptoCurrency Over Alleged Targeted CensorshipThe official @Litecoin account on X has gone public with a sharp accusation against @Reddit's flagship r/CryptoCurrency forum, alleging a coordinated effort to suppress positive content about the cryptocurrency. The statement has drawn attention from the broader crypto community and raised questions about moderation practices on one of the internet's most influential crypto discussion boards.

"There's a concerted effort on r/CryptoCurrency to ban anything positive about Litecoin. Litecoin supporters simply posting general news should not be banned and/or suspended. This needs to stop," Litecoin wrote on X.

Forum members have corroborated the claim, noting selective post deletions and account suspensions tied specifically to positive $LTC coverage. According to Crypto Times, the accusation appears to have been partly triggered after at least one user reported being banned following a post about a Litecoin partnership announcement. The subreddit's moderators have not publicly responded to the allegations.

Why It Matters for a Mature Proof-of-Work NetworkThe controversy is notable given Litecoin's standing as one of the oldest and most established cryptocurrencies in the market. Launched in October 2011 by Charlie Lee, a former Google engineer, Litecoin was designed as a faster, more accessible alternative to Bitcoin, using a Scrypt-based proof-of-work algorithm with a block time of roughly 2.5 minutes and a capped supply of 84 million coins, according to Fidelity's learning center.

Often described as the silver to Bitcoin's gold, Litecoin has maintained a long track record of network uptime and broad exchange support. Suppression of organic discussion about the project on a major public forum, if substantiated, could affect how new and prospective users discover and evaluate the asset.

As of now, no evidence in the form of ban notices or removed post logs has been published by Litecoin to support the claim, and r/CryptoCurrency's moderation team has yet to comment. The situation remains unresolved.

Sources:
Crypto Times: Litecoin Accuses Reddit's r/CryptoCurrency of Banning Positive LTC Posts
Fidelity Learning Center: What Is Litecoin?

REUTERS: Coinbase Is Aware That Some Users May Be Experiencing Delayed Sends On XRP Network

The XRP Ledger’s (XRPL) Batch feature is now live on the mainnet, unlocking a new use case for institutional and retail investors. A notable feature of this amendment is that users can now execute several transactions in one, a move which XRPL validator Vet described as a big unlock.

XRP Ledger’s Batch Feature Goes Live XRPScan data shows that the Batch feature is now live on the mainnet, two weeks after the proposal passed the majority threshold. 30 validators voted in favor of the feature, while only five voted against it.

The XRP Ledger feature enables users to execute multiple transactions in one. Commenting on this development, XRPL validator Vet said, “Its a massively important functionality for the XRP Ledger to allow crucial use cases for institutions and also retail builders.”

He cited hw the use case could be key for OTC trades, DvP settlement, NFTF for NFT swaps, and trustless transaction execution dependencies. He added that the use cases’ creativity has no limits and described it as a big unlock.

The release of the XRP Ledger Batch feature on mainnet comes just as the network’s new lending protocol version opens for validator voting. The lending protocol version introduces closed-ended vaults and cash-basis accounting for XRPL lending.

Batch feature is now LIVE !!

Major props to all the engineers and validators to get this over the finish line.

Its a massively important functionality for the XRP Ledger to allow crucial use cases for institutions and also retail builders.

Think of OTC trades, DvP, NFT for NFT swap, trustless transaction execution dependencies and so much more.

The use cases creativity has no limits here.

Big unlock folks.

— Vet (@Vet_X0) October 9, 2026

The XRP price is notably in the green today amid the release of the XRP Ledger feature. The coin is trading at around $1.38, up less than 1%, according to TradingView data. However, XRP is still down over 7% over the past week.

Source: TradingView

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XRP price is at $1.40 today, which gave its daily indicator setup a neutral score of 4.7 out of 10. The token is only $0.02 above nearby support at $1.38, while the $1.50–$1.53 area is the hurdle buyers must reclaim before higher levels come into play.

That leaves little room for conviction in either direction: a close above $1.53 could bring $1.62 and potentially $1.66–$1.70 into focus, while losing $1.38 would shift attention lower. The analysis’s stance is to wait for clearer confirmation, a view consistent with the mixed signals in the XRP support and resistance setup.

The longer-term chart still has a constructive element: XRP price is trading above its 200-day EMA of $1.28. But that does not establish that buyers control the near-term trend. The 20-day EMA is at $1.46, above the $1.40 price, and the 50-day EMA is at $1.40, leaving the short-term picture less supportive.

XRP USD, TradingviewMomentum readings also fail to confirm a recovery. The daily RSI is 44, below its 50 midpoint but not in oversold territory, while the MACD line at 0.008184 is below its 0.027457 signal line, and the histogram is negative at -0.019274. These readings point to weakening momentum.

On-balance volume is falling, which is weakening accumulation and a warning that rallies may lack participation. The indicator scorecard reflects that split: moving averages, Fibonacci, and support receive bullish scores, while Bollinger Bands, resistance, the trendline, MACD, and OBV are rated bearish.

Supply adds context, but not a directional verdict. U.S. spot XRP ETFs had attracted about $307.9 million in Q3, while also describing rising exchange deposits as potential sell-side liquidity rather than confirmed sales. Demand and available supply can coexist, so those figures do not establish that buyers have absorbed enough tokens to break resistance.

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XRP Price Support and Resistance: The Levels That Change the SetupThe immediate floor is $1.38. Below it, the primary analysis maps support at $1.31, then $1.25 and $1.12; its trade framework also identifies $1.34 as a Fibonacci reference. The 200-day EMA at $1.28 sits between the $1.31 and $1.25 zones, making it another structural level to monitor if selling extends.

Overhead, $1.50 and the ascending trendline near $1.51 form the first reclaim zone, with $1.53 the more decisive breakout threshold in the supplied summary. The Bollinger lower band was $1.39, the midline $1.49, and the upper band $1.59, placing the $1.40 price near the lower edge of that range. The primary analysis also lists resistance at $1.66 before the prior swing high at $1.70.

LevelRole in the setupConditional implication$1.38Nearest supportA decisive loss puts lower support zones in view.$1.50–$1.53Reclaim and breakout areaA confirmed close above $1.53 improves the upside case.$1.62Potential next objectiveRelevant only if the breakout is confirmed.$1.66–$1.70Higher resistance and prior swing highPotential supply zone, not a guaranteed target.One Fibonacci detail needs qualification: the analysis gives the 61.8% retracement as $1.43, but XRP at $1.40 is below that level, not above it. It places the 50% retracement at $1.34, and the 38.2% level at $1.26, broadly framing the lower areas traders may watch if support fails.

A separate XRP range-breakout setup also emphasizes that a move through resistance or a clean support loss matters more than signals generated inside the range.

Trade XRP on Bybit and Get a Chance to Win Our $1,000 USDT Airdrop

Reclaim, Range Hold, or Breakdown?A confirmed close above $1.53 would strengthen the XRP price breakout case and could put $1.62 in view, followed by the $1.66–$1.70 resistance zone. Those are conditional technical objectives, not a forecast that XRP will reach them; the source’s emphasis on waiting for directional confirmation remains relevant.

If price instead rejects $1.50–$1.53, the immediate test is whether $1.38 holds. A decisive break below that support would expose $1.31–$1.34 first and $1.25 next, with the $1.28 200-day EMA also on the map. Until one boundary gives way, the neutral reading is more defensible than treating either move as underway.

For now, XRP’s longer-term position above the 200-day EMA is counterbalanced by sub-50 RSI, a bearish MACD configuration, and falling OBV. That combination does not settle the next move. It leaves $1.38 support and the $1.50–$1.53 reclaim zone as the clearest decision points.

Discover: The Best Token Presales

San Francisco-based technology company Ripple, best known as the creator of XRP and a leader in blockchain payment solutions, has expanded its operations further into institutional finance with the launch of Ripple Prime. This platform is designed to offer comprehensive custody and liquidity services for traditional and crypto assets.

Ripple Prime eyes Wall Street growthRipple Prime has secured federal-grade certification for its custody platform and is rapidly expanding its roster of corporate clients. Among its newest partners is Brevan Howard, a prominent fund manager overseeing more than $35 billion in assets and focusing on blockchain infrastructure investments.

Ripple Prime is targeting the significant opportunities within Wall Street, specifically the $256 billion US leveraged ETF market. The company aims to position itself as a core liquidity provider in this segment by leveraging its institutional-grade solutions and global relationships.

Morningstar Direct reports that the US leveraged ETF sector comprises 593 funds, with 426 tracking individual stocks. Ripple Prime is working to capture business within this landscape, where the use of total-return swaps allows brokers to amplify the daily price movement of a stock or index and collect financing charges in return for their services.

Mini dictionary: Brevan Howard is a global alternative asset management firm specializing in macro strategies and digital assets, known for its involvement in blockchain-based infrastructure and significant asset management portfolio.

US Leveraged ETF MarketAmount/NumberTotal assets (2025)$256 billionNumber of leveraged ETFs593Funds tracking individual stocks426Leveraged market and financing expansionRipple has recently entered the lucrative leveraged products market in the United States, where it now earns a financing fee with an annualized rate of roughly 8% from products such as the Tradr 2X Long SNDK Daily ETF. Regulatory scrutiny on non-bank financial institutions has tightened, creating new openings for Ripple Prime to grow as traditional competitors face stricter requirements.

Currently, Ripple Prime serves hundreds of financial institutions worldwide. In 2025, it processed an estimated $13 trillion in transactions, highlighting its scale and reach in institutional finance.

XRP ETF inflows and market sentimentSpot-market XRP exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have contributed to Ripple’s expansion, with cumulative inflows surpassing $8 million on October 8, 2026. The total net assets for XRP ETFs have now broken above $1.56 billion, led by investment firms such as Bitwise and Franklin Templeton.

Market activity has been uneven, with periods of limited inflows and price volatility. Since October 8, trading patterns suggest that some institutional investors may be searching for a market bottom, while large holders, often referred to as whales, have increased their trading impact. A positive buying trend historically correlates with price appreciation in XRP.

Spot XRP ETFs reached cumulative assets over $1.56 billion, with Bitwise and Franklin Templeton leading recent inflows. Institutional activity has contributed to fluctuating inflow patterns, reflecting current market uncertainty.

However, recent technical indicators show considerable selling pressure. The Chaikin Money Flow (CMF) index currently records a strongly negative value across most timeframes, with the one-day chart dropping below -0.23. This scenario heightens the probability of XRP moving toward the lower boundary of the Bollinger Band around the $1.33 mark.

Mini dictionary: Chaikin Money Flow (CMF) is a volume-weighted technical indicator that measures buying and selling pressure, with a negative value suggesting stronger selling momentum.

Crypto analyst Emily has outlined a bullish scenario for XRP, pointing to $3.65 as her main target in the next potential move. She described $1.30 as a critical support zone, emphasizing that XRP’s ability to hold this area could pave the way for a series of upward price targets.

XRP breaks above long-term trendlineEmily’s technical analysis featured an XRP/USDT price chart, where the token was trading near $1.47 at the time of her assessment. The chart highlighted XRP moving above a long-term descending trendline, marking a shift away from a persistent downtrend that had influenced prices over an extended period.

The significance of this trendline break is integral to Emily’s outlook. She sees this as a turning point, supporting her view that XRP could be poised for a stronger upside move if bullish momentum continues.

A strong XRP breakout is taking shape. If the $1.30 zone holds, the initial targets I’m watching are $1.88, $2.90, and $3.65. The long-term downtrend line has been broken, and the price is entering a critical expansion phase.

$1.30 emerges as critical levelEmily placed particular importance on the $1.30 level as a foundational support for XRP’s next trend. Her scenario starts at this zone, and she mapped out potential progressions towards $1.88 and $2.90, ultimately targeting $3.65 if buying interest remains strong.

The chart she shared visually marks each step, using $1.30 as the base for her projection. According to Emily, the ability of XRP to sustain above this area would keep the broader bullish setup intact.

In her analysis, Emily wrote, “If the $1.30 zone holds,” before specifying the sequential targets. This caution reflects the importance of ongoing support at that price to enable further upward moves.

Support/Target LevelStatus/Role$1.30Key support$1.88First target$2.90Second target$3.65Main targetMain target set at $3.65Emily’s analysis centers on $3.65 as the key upside objective for XRP. She illustrated this level at the conclusion of a sizeable move projected from the $1.30 support in her price chart.

Next to the projected move, Emily included a measurement of 177.08% as a possible gain if XRP were to reach $3.65 from its starting point. This level remains considerably above the token’s current price and is not presented as a certainty, but rather as a potential milestone if conditions align.

This could happen faster than most people imagine, given the technical breakout and momentum in play. The $1.30 support is critical, while $3.65 is the key target for the next significant leg up.

Analyst’s outlook and backgroundEmily is an independent cryptocurrency analyst known for her technical chart-based forecasts and her active presence on X (formerly Twitter), where she shares market insights with a broad audience of traders and investors.

She expects the sequence of targets—$1.88, $2.90, and $3.65—to remain achievable as long as XRP does not fall below $1.30. The earlier breakout above the long-term trendline is, in her view, an important bullish factor in the current environment.

Her approach reflects a step-by-step progression, with each successive target coming into focus as long as support levels hold. Emily emphasized that these targets represent technical projections and not financial advice or guarantees of price action.

For traders and investors watching XRP, Emily’s setup serves as a key reference for near and mid-term price action if bullish momentum continues to build above $1.30.

Mini dictionary: Descending trendline, a line drawn on a price chart to connect successive lower highs, often used by technical analysts to determine whether the price of an asset is in a downtrend. Breaking above this line is sometimes interpreted as a reversal signal for potential upward momentum.

The XRP Ledger has activated its Batch feature on mainnet with support from 30 validators, allowing users to bundle between two and eight transactions into one operation.

Summary

30 validators backed BatchV1_1, while five opposed it, according to XRPScan figures cited in the report. Batch offers four execution modes, including a setting that makes all linked actions succeed together. Validator Vet identified OTC trades, delivery-versus-payment settlement and NFT swaps as potential uses. XRPL’s separate lending revision introduces closed-ended vaults and cash-basis accounting, subject to validator approval. XRPScan’s dashboard shows BatchV1_1 as active on mainnet, according to the reported amendment data, following the network’s two-week validator approval period.

With 30 of 35 validators supporting the change, the reported vote count puts approval at about 85.7%. Under XRPL’s amendment process, proposals must sustain the required validator supermajority for two consecutive weeks before their rules take effect.

According to XRPL’s documentation, Batch contains an outer transaction and a list of two to eight inner transactions. The chosen execution mode determines whether the actions depend on each other or can complete separately.

XRP Ledger Batch supports linked trades and payments XRPL validator Vet described the feature as useful for institutions and retail developers, pointing to over-the-counter trades, delivery-versus-payment settlement, NFT-for-NFT exchanges and transactions whose execution depends on another action.

“Its a massively important functionality for the XRP Ledger to allow crucial use cases for institutions and also retail builders,” Vet said.

In his assessment, developers have considerable room to build around the feature, which he described as a “big unlock.”

For linked exchanges, the official Batch specification describes an all-or-nothing setting that requires every included action to succeed. Under that setting, a failed transfer prevents the rest of the group from completing independently, according to the specification.

In its Sep. 15 coverage, crypto.news previously reported that developers had fixed 11 software issues before the latest approval process, while RippleX said commercial projects using Batch were already under contract or development.

RippleX’s examples included a token swap between two users and a customer payment paired with a platform fee. Its account described projects in development without naming the companies involved.

According to the published specification, participating accounts must approve the transaction collection in a multi-account Batch. The signing rules bind their approval to the bundled actions, preventing one participant from treating another party’s transfer as a separately authorized payment.

Four execution modes determine which actions complete The official specification gives users four choices: All or Nothing, Only One, Until Failure, and Independent.

Under All or Nothing, the group completes only if every included action succeeds, the specification says. Only One instead permits a single successful action, supporting a sequence of alternatives rather than requiring the entire collection to complete.

For ordered operations, Until Failure processes actions until an action fails, retaining earlier successful steps under the specification’s rules. Independent attempts the included actions separately, without requiring every action to succeed.

According to XRPL’s transaction reference, users must select one execution mode for the Batch. The reference also prohibits nesting a Batch transaction inside another Batch and rejects duplicate inner transactions.

In its Sep. 29 review of Batch mechanics, earlier reporting detailed a Sep. 25 emergency software release that introduced fixBatchV1_2 to address security-sensitive issues.

The XRPL Foundation’s version 3.4.1 notice urged operators to upgrade promptly and identified Oct. 9 as the expected activation date for that security amendment, conditional on sustained validator support.

For applications handling completed payments, XRPL’s tutorial warns that a successful outer Batch result does not guarantee that its inner transactions succeeded.

The tutorial instructs developers to inspect the individual transaction results and verify account balances. In its all-or-nothing example, a failed inner payment causes all included payments to fail, while the Batch transaction fee is still deducted.

XRPL lending revision adds defined vault periods Separate from Batch, XRPL’s LendingProtocolV1_1 amendment adds closed-ended vaults and cash-basis accounting, according to the network’s version 3.4.0 release notes.

A Sep. 18 report on the lending and protocol revisions documented the software release issued on Sep. 16 and explained that distributing the software did not itself activate the amendments.

Under the release’s lending design, vaults have defined subscription, investment, and redemption periods. XRPL’s documentation says depositors can add or withdraw assets during subscription, while the investment period stops deposits and withdrawals as funds become available for loans.

Once the investment period ends, the documentation provides for redemption so depositors can recover their share after loans mature.

For newly created vaults, the proposed accounting rules recognize interest when borrowers pay it, rather than recording all scheduled interest when a loan begins. According to XRPL’s documentation, older vaults retain their existing accounting model after the V1.1 amendment activates.

Evernorth’s Nasdaq plan sets out U.S. shareholder exposure For U.S. stock-market investors, Evernorth’s planned Nasdaq listing provides a separate XRP-related corporate development documented in an Oct. 6 SEC filing.

An Oct. 7 report covered Evernorth’s revised Nasdaq trading timetable, after the company said an administrative delay had moved its expected XRPN debut from Oct. 8 to Oct. 12.

According to Evernorth, the transaction with Armada Acquisition Corp. II was expected to close on Oct. 9, with trading subject to customary closing conditions and Nasdaq listing requirements.

The company said it expected to hold approximately 473 million XRP at closing. Its Oct. 6 SEC filing also confirmed that Armada shareholders had approved the business combination at their Sep. 30 extraordinary general meeting.

Spot $XRP exchange-traded funds have staged a modest comeback this week, posting net inflows of $11.31 million despite recording positive flows on just two of the week's trading sessions so far, according to @BSCNews.

ETFs Absorb a Growing Share of XRP Supply The recovery adds to a broader accumulation trend that has gathered pace throughout 2026. That figure reflects steady institutional demand since the funds launched in late 2025, even as weekly inflow volumes have fluctuated considerably.

The supply angle is equally striking. The funds now hold roughly 1.79% of $XRP's total supply, meaning ETFs collectively control close to one in every 50 tokens in existence.

Flow activity has not been evenly distributed across issuers. That kind of divergence between individual products has become a recurring pattern as investors rotate between the competing vehicles.

Context: A Strong Year for XRP ETF Accumulation This week's inflows come after a landmark period for the product class.

Despite the positive fund flows, price action has not always followed.

Still, the structural picture points to tightening supply. As ETFs lock up an ever-larger portion of circulating tokens, the available float for spot market trading continues to shrink, a dynamic that analysts have flagged as a potential price catalyst if demand accelerates.

Sources:
TokenPost: U.S. Spot XRP ETFs Hold $1.697 Billion as Inflows Lose Momentum
TokenPost: XRP Spot ETFs Record $4.7439 Million in Weekly Net Inflows
Startup Fortune: XRP Climbs Toward $1.52 as Spot ETFs Post Their Biggest Inflow Week of 2026

Ethereum price has recovered to around $2,493 after a sharp fall toward $2,400, but its daily Supertrend has turned bearish, and the 4-hour chart still shows negative money flow.

Summary

Ethereum price trades near $2,493 after recovering from its sharp decline toward $2,400. Daily Supertrend resistance stands at $2,764, above Ethereum’s current price. The 4-hour Bollinger midpoint at $2,569 marks the next recovery hurdle. U.S. spot Ethereum ETFs recorded $486.1 million in outflows across four trading sessions. Ethereum price struggles to recover $2,500 TradingView’s Binance ETH/USDT daily chart showed Ethereum at $2,492.98 on Oct. 9, up 0.73% for the session. The day’s price range extended from $2,471.05 to $2,520.54, leaving ETH below $2,500 despite an earlier move above that level.

The daily chart shows a sharp reversal from the trading range established near $2,650–$2,750 in late September and early October. Ethereum’s latest bounce has recovered only part of that decline, with the price still below the area where it traded before selling accelerated.

On the 4-hour TradingView chart, ETH stood at $2,493.31 after falling 0.53% during the displayed period. Its recovery from the recent low had stalled near $2,500, while the latest candles remained below the chart’s falling moving average.

Analyst Ella identified $2,500 as the first level buyers need to reclaim in an Oct. 9 post. She described Ethereum’s move from approximately $2,700 to a wick near $2,400 as a decline of close to 11%, with selling accelerating toward the end.

Ella said a recovery above $2,500 could ease some of the panic, while failure to regain that level would leave the bounce vulnerable. Her assessment places the immediate focus on whether Ethereum can hold above the round-number threshold after briefly trading through it.

Daily Supertrend turns bearish above ETH The daily TradingView chart displayed a red Supertrend reading at $2,764.28 following Ethereum’s latest sell-off. The indicator had previously tracked below the price during the advance from August into September.

Ethereum price daily chart — Oct. 9 | Source: TradingView Its shift above ETH places the daily trend signal on the bearish side. At approximately $2,493, Ethereum traded nearly 10% below the Supertrend level, leaving a substantial gap between the rebound and a potential reversal of that signal.

The earlier green Supertrend line ended around $2,477.52, close to the current price. Ethereum’s sharp downward wick passed below that area before the rebound, while the newly displayed red line established a higher resistance threshold.

TradingView’s daily Average Directional Index stood at 35.48. The reading remained above 25, a commonly used threshold for an established trend, although the line had declined from its September highs.

ADX measures trend strength rather than direction. In Ethereum’s current setup, the bearish direction comes from the Supertrend change and the price breakdown, while the falling ADX shows that measured trend strength has eased from earlier readings.

The daily chart also places the former $2,650–$2,750 trading range above the market. A recovery into that area would retrace more of the recent fall, but ETH would still need to clear the Supertrend resistance near $2,764 to reverse the indicator’s bearish setting.

The 4-hour chart puts $2,569 ahead of a stronger recovery Ethereum’s 4-hour Bollinger Bands showed a midpoint of $2,568.56, an upper band of $2,731.37 and a lower band of $2,405.75. ETH traded in the lower half of that range after bouncing from near the lower boundary.

Ethereum price 4-hour chart — Oct. 9 | Source: TradingView The midpoint stood roughly 3% above the displayed price. A move above $2,500 would therefore clear the nearest round-number hurdle while leaving the 20-period moving average around $2,569 as the next technical test.

The bands had widened during the sell-off, with the upper boundary rising and the lower boundary falling. On the chart, that expansion accompanied the break from Ethereum’s earlier consolidation around $2,700.

The 4-hour Chaikin Money Flow reading was negative at -0.10. The indicator’s position below zero points to selling pressure across its measurement period, even after Ethereum recovered from the low.

Together, the price below the Bollinger midpoint and negative CMF leave the short-term recovery without a clear bullish confirmation. A sustained move above $2,569 alongside CMF returning above zero would strengthen the recovery case on that timeframe.

On the downside, the lower Bollinger Band near $2,406 overlaps with the recent price trough around $2,400. A break below that zone would take Ethereum beneath both the latest low area and the displayed band boundary.

ETF withdrawals continue as liquidation clusters sit overhead Farside Investors recorded $201.9 million in U.S. spot Ethereum ETF outflows on Oct. 6 and another $160.9 million on Oct. 7. Combined withdrawals reached $362.8 million across those two sessions.

The same dataset showed $72.5 million in further outflows on Oct. 8. Including the $50.8 million withdrawn on Oct. 5, net redemptions totaled $486.1 million across four trading sessions, extending the funds’ outflow streak to eight sessions.

CoinGlass’s one-week Ethereum liquidation heatmap showed its brightest remaining overhead concentration around $2,635–$2,640. Additional bands appeared near $2,610 and across approximately $2,740–$2,760, above the current market price.

Ethereum liquidation heatmap | Source: CoinGlass Below ETH, the heatmap displayed smaller concentrations around $2,450–$2,460 and $2,400, with further bands near $2,380. Those levels sit beneath the rebound and around the area reached during the sharpest part of the decline.

A separate weekly assessment from the analyst publishing as Wealthmanager offered a longer-term bullish scenario. The analyst described an inverse head-and-shoulders setup, a reclaimed neckline and improving RSI, with a successful retest potentially opening a move toward $3,200–$4,000.

$ETH is showing signs of a major trend reversal.

The inverse head and shoulders structure is taking shape, with the neckline reclaimed and RSI showing strength.

A successful retest could open the way toward $3.2K–$4K.

The weekly structure is worth watching closely. pic.twitter.com/MpCeaS4PSf

— Wealthmanager (@Wealthmanager) October 9, 2026 That forecast remains conditional on the weekly retest holding. On the shorter TradingView timeframes, Ethereum still faces $2,500 and $2,569 before the former trading range and daily Supertrend resistance near $2,764.

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

In brief Starknet is "actively considering" becoming an independent layer-1 blockchain, with 2027 as the target to become the first fully quantum-resistant network. StarkWare CEO Eli Ben-Sasson said an L1 would let Starknet control its own security upgrades instead of waiting for Ethereum, whose roadmap targets core post-quantum infrastructure around 2029. The STRK token traded near $0.073 on Friday, up about 20% in 24 hours and more than double its roughly $0.03 price in April. Starknet, the Ethereum scaling network built by StarkWare, said it is weighing a move to become its own blockchain.

"We are actively considering becoming an L1," the project wrote on X. "This would enable Starknet to become the first fully quantum-resistant network, with 2027 as our target."

Myriad: Where does Ethereum go next? Click to make your prediction.The STRK token traded around $0.073 on Friday, up about 20% in 24 hours. That is more than double the roughly $0.03 it fetched in April, when StarkWare cut staff to chase revenue.

An L1, or layer 1, is a base blockchain such as Bitcoin or Ethereum that validates and secures its own transactions. Starknet is a layer 2, a network that sits on top of Ethereum, bundles transactions into batches and leans on the base chain for security.

Starknet's pitch centers on quantum computers, machines that could one day crack the elliptic-curve cryptography (the math behind the digital signatures that prove you own your coins) used by Bitcoin and Ethereum. Starknet's own proofs rely on hash functions, which scramble data into fixed fingerprints and are considered quantum-resistant, though some elliptic-curve pieces remain that it said it would replace in a roadmap published June 30.

Starknet price data. Image: TradingviewStarkWare CEO Eli Ben-Sasson floated the idea in a thread on X, saying the quantum threat "may be much closer than we think" and that AI's pace in mathematics adds a second risk that calls for "bunker mode"—a phrase recently popularized by Ethereum researcher Justin Drake in his own call to action earlier this week.

Starknet becoming an L1 for post-quantum agility: good idea or bad idea?

Two giant elements we need to pay attention to:
(1) The quantum threat.
It may be MUCH closer than we think.

(2) AI.
It's becoming more powerful than we can process.
Is anyone willing to bet how much time… pic.twitter.com/bLsxzwX2mQ

— Eli Ben-Sasson | Starknet.io (@EliBenSasson) October 8, 2026

Ben-Sasson wrote that Starknet, as an L2, relies on the security of Ethereum, which means it can only be as quantum-safe as its base layer. He said the network needs Ethereum to move "real fast," and that becoming an L1 is among the options if it does not.

Ethereum's own roadmap targets core post-quantum infrastructure by around 2029, per ethereum.org, after the Ethereum Foundation formed a dedicated post-quantum team in January. Drake said at the time that "timelines are accelerating." Bitcoin has made no such commitment, according to Ben-Sasson.

Becoming an L1 would give Starknet control over its own security upgrades, so it would not have to wait for Ethereum or Bitcoin to move first, Ben-Sasson wrote. It would also mean Starknet secures itself instead of borrowing Ethereum's protection, the arrangement that defines a layer 2. The statement does not say how existing apps and users would move over.

On the other hand, it would also mean Starknet is responsible for its safety and development, which could be a hurdle considering Ethereum as a project is the second largest and most active in the crypto ecosystem after Bitcoin.

No quantum computer can break these systems today, and experts disagree on when one might. Strategy co-founder Michael Saylor told Bloomberg last year that he does not worry about it, arguing that banks and tech giants would be hit first.

Ben-Sasson said Starknet could reach quantum resistance by 2027, two years before the end-of-2029 date he cited for Ethereum.

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It has been a bruising week for crypto prices, but @Starknet's native token $STRK has been a clear exception. At around 11am UTC on October 9, the token was trading up more than 71% on the seven-day chart and roughly 35% higher over the prior 24 hours, a move that stood in sharp contrast to broader market weakness.

A Potential L1 Pivot Drives the Sentiment Shift The rally appears largely tied to a significant strategic announcement. The motivation is quantum security: By comparison,

However, the market has responded sharply to the idea.

Context: What an L1 Transition Would Mean

Investors should note that this remains an early-stage consideration.

Sources:
ForkLog: Starknet Considers Transition to L1 Due to Quantum Threat
The Crypto Times: Starknet STRK Price Jumps 40% as Network Weighs Move Beyond Ethereum
Bankless: Starknet Weighs Becoming an L1 to Chase Quantum Resistance

XRP price climbed 2.82% to $1.38 over 24 hours, joining a broader cryptocurrency rebound after two days of losses.

Bitcoin price rose by 2.51% to more than $83,000, while Ethereum climbed to $2,490. 

The total market capitalization of the cryptocurrency industry rose by 1.87% to $2.79 trillion, as some of the top tokens rallied. 

XRP ETFs attracted $8.17 million on Thursday.  For this to happen, XRP would need to rise by about 8.7% from its current price. 

XRP ETFs Draw $8.17M as Bitcoin and Ethereum Funds Lose Cash XRP spot ETFs recorded $8.17 million in net inflows on October 8, while Bitcoin and Ethereum funds faced withdrawals. SoSoValue indicates that Franklin’s XRPZ was responsible for all the inflow as four other XRP funds did not experience a net movement.

XRP ETF Bitcoin spot ETFs in the U.S. shed $244 million, with Franklin’s EZBC as the sole fund to gain money. It was granted about $4.71 million, while the biggest withdrawal was made by Fidelity’s FBTC, which pulled $197 million.

Bitcoin Spot ETFs See $244 Million in Net Outflows on October 8

On October 8 (ET), U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded total net outflows of $244 million, with only the Franklin Bitcoin ETF (EZBC) reporting a net inflow. Spot Ethereum ETFs saw total net outflows of $72.544 million, marking their eighth consecutive day of net outflows.

— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) October 9, 2026

Ethereum ETFs saw net outflows totaling $72.544 million, continuing their withdrawal trend for the past eight trading sessions. The data revealed XRP ETF assets of $1.56 billion and daily turnover of $65.44 million. Across the five products, the lifetime net inflows were $1.80 billion.

Will XRP Price Recover to $1.50 Soon? The XRP Price traded at $1.38 on Friday, October 9, as its recovery stalled below nearby resistance. 

XRP price had pulled back from near $1.50 earlier this week, falling below two price levels that had been supportive trading levels. The token bounced from the $1.35 price point, but failed to get back to $1.40. 

The Relative Strength Index (RSI) was at 36, which is above the traditional “oversold” level of 30.

The MACD line was at −0.0278 where the signal line was at −0.0270 and the histogram was at −0.0008. This indicated that bear momentum was subsiding as the negative bars were shrinking but the lines were not confirming a bull market cross.

Source: TradingView The first recovery level to consider is $1.45 on the sustained break above $1.40 for four hours. That resistance would be a boost to the rebound case and open the door for a potential return to $1.50. 

On the downside, a loss of $1.35 on a consistent basis could uncover the support zone around $1.30 in mid-September.

Starknet’s native token, STRK, surged 18.1% in 24 hours, surpassing the $0.06 level. This price movement followed a noteworthy statement by StarkWare CEO Eli Ben-Sasson regarding the future of Starknet.

Ben-Sasson discussed the risks that quantum computers and artificial intelligence could pose to the security structure of blockchain networks. He stated that one of the options being considered to allow Starknet to implement security updates more independently is to separate from the Layer-2 structure running on Ethereum and become an independent Layer-1 network.

However, this announcement does not signify a finalized network transition or a management decision. The Starknet team is currently only evaluating various technical options. The timeline for a potential change and the role of the STRK token in the new structure have not yet been announced.

Starknet recently rolled out the v0.14.4 update to the mainnet. The update increased the capacity to process approximately 1.1 billion Layer-2 gases within a single proof of force. While the possibility of an independent network seems to be influencing the rise in STRK, the key factor determining whether this price movement is sustainable will be whether the plan translates into a concrete technical proposition.

The graph shows the increase in the STRK price. *This is not investment advice.

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Stablecoin supply across Ethereum, Arbitrum One and Base rose by a combined $403.1 million over the past week. Ethereum accounted for the largest piece, at approximately $243 million.

The data comes from DefiLlama and covers a week in October 2026. No headline event appears to have triggered the move.

Where the new dollars landed Ethereum’s stablecoin supply now sits at around $146.5 billion, according to DefiLlama figures. That makes the network the single largest home for dollar-pegged tokens tracked on-chain.

Ethereum holds about 47-48% of the total on-chain stablecoin supply across the major networks DefiLlama tracks.

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The more interesting percentages came from the Layer-2 networks. Arbitrum’s stablecoin supply rose 2.08% over seven days. Base posted a 0.86% increase over the same stretch.

For readers newer to the term, Layer-2 networks are separate chains built on top of Ethereum. They process transactions more cheaply and then settle back to the main network. Arbitrum One and Base are two of the most widely used.

The tokens doing the heavy lifting Two names dominate the supply on these chains: USDT, issued by Tether, and USDC, issued by Circle. Both are designed to hold a steady value of one US dollar.

USDT controls approximately 50% of Ethereum’s stablecoin supply on its own.

Stablecoins are the plumbing of on-chain finance. Traders park funds in them between positions. Lending protocols use them as the main asset borrowers want. Decentralized exchanges rely on them as the base currency for most trading pairs.

The bigger stablecoin picture Zoomed out, the total stablecoin market cap has held in a range between $300 billion and $306 billion. The weekly growth on Ethereum and its Layer-2s fits within that broader stable pattern rather than breaking from it.

What this means for traders and DeFi users Concentration risk is one thing to keep in mind. With USDT holding roughly half of Ethereum’s stablecoin supply, the network’s dollar liquidity leans heavily on one issuer. Anything that affects Tether’s operations would ripple through a large share of on-chain activity.

A single week of data is a snapshot, not a trend line. The overall stablecoin market cap staying in a tight range suggests the industry is consolidating rather than surging, and the absence of a specific news driver means this growth could just as easily slow down without warning.

The metrics to track from here are straightforward. Watch whether Ethereum’s share of on-chain stablecoin supply holds in the 47-48% range. Watch whether Arbitrum and Base keep growing faster than the main chain in percentage terms. And watch whether the total stablecoin market cap finally breaks out of its $300 billion to $306 billion range, in either direction.

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

Bitcoin rebounded 2% over the past 24 hours as traders see two potential market scenarios ahead of the November midterm elections.

Notable Statistics:

Coinglass data shows 83,856 traders were liquidated in the past 24 hours for $346.17 million.        SoSoValue data shows net outflows of $244.1 million from spot Bitcoin ETFs on Thursday. Spot Ethereum ETFs saw net outflows of $72.5 million. In the past 24 hours, top gainers include Cosmos Hub, Polkadot and Aptos. Notable Developments:

XRP Beats Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana in ETF Flows: Can Price Follow?CFTC Chair Mike Selig Pushes New Crypto Platform RulesXRP Down 10% in a Week: What’s Going On?A Bitcoin Rally to $90,000 Would Be the ‘Ultimate Trap,’ Analyst CautionsBitcoin Dips Below $83,000: The Line in the Sand Bulls Need to WatchBitwise CEO Calls Dogecoin ETF Failure ‘Tragic’ as BWOW Set to Shut Down After Less Than a YearRipple Takes On Wall Street Banks in Leveraged ETF FinancingTrader Notes:

Trader KillaXBT expects Bitcoin to form a higher low after the U.S. midterm elections, noting BTC declined following three of the past four elections.

Two scenarios are possible: either Bitcoin rallies before the midterms and corrects 10% or more afterward or it sells off ahead of the elections before recovering.

Either way, the analyst does not expect new bear market lows and anticipates another rally toward fresh highs.

Trader Jelle noted that Bitcoin historically staged sharp rallies when its 200-week moving average held as support.

Unlike the previous cycle, when BTC fell well below this level before a gradual recovery, Bitcoin has defended the moving average this cycle, potentially setting the stage for a stronger bull run.

Image: Shutterstock

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