Uniswap (UNI) has lost 25.75% of its value over the past month, sliding to $6.93. On-chain data, however, shows new users arriving at the fastest pace since November 2022.
Santiment counted 2,295 new UNI wallets in a single day. The firm said that influx could firm up a price base, provided wallet creation stays elevated.
Uniswap’s v4 Push Pulls In Fresh WalletsSantiment’s network growth metric counts addresses interacting with UNI for the first time. The firm said a four-year high signals a large influx of new participants.
UNI Network Growth Hitting its Highest Level Since November 2022. Source: X/Santiment Santiment credited new Uniswap v4 features, wider liquidity routing, and ongoing work on Unichain, Uniswap’s layer-2 network.
DefiLlama data shows Uniswap v4 now holds about $1.44 billion in total value locked (TVL). That marks a roughly 17% rise over the past month.
So far, however, the activity has not stopped the token’s decline. UNI is down 3.82% over the past 24 hours, adding to its monthly losses, per BeInCrypto Markets data
Uniswap Price Performance Over the Past Month. Source: BeInCrypto MarketsAnalyst Phoenix traced the decline to seller pressure after UNI tested the $10 mark. He noted the price has since dropped below the Ichimoku cloud and its moving averages on shrinking volume.
Phoenix warned that a full breakdown of $7 could send UNI toward $6 to $6.50. The token now sits just under that line at $6.93.
Santiment framed the same level in terms of user demand.
“Holding $7 while network growth remains above its recent baseline would favor another test of $8, while losing $7 alongside fading wallet creation would suggest the spike was mostly short-term excitement rather than sustained adoption,” the post read.
UNI Price OutlookWinning back those losses starts with a move above $7. Santiment named $7.50 as the first meaningful level to reclaim, followed by $8.
On October 21, when UNI traded above $7, analyst Scient flagged bullish four-hour divergences. He floated a possible squeeze similar to Zcash’s (ZEC).
Analyst Defi Rocketeer finds the $7 area more interesting than the rally near $11. He expects a $10 to $12 retest if the broader market stabilizes. Analyst CryptoBullet places major resistance further up, at $13 to $15.
$UNI Macro chart
Biggest DEX with a daily trading volume of $1-2 billion, $UNI token is tied to protocol usage through supply burns 🔥
— CryptoBullet (@CryptoBullet1) October 20, 2026 For holders, the next signals to watch are Santiment’s network growth readings and whether UNI can close above $7. A recovery in both would bring Santiment’s $8 test back into play.
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Bitcoin is approaching a make-or-break weekend. After failing to hold $83,000, the cryptocurrency is now facing a more uncomfortable level at $80,000.
Analyst Benjamin Cowen warns that a weekly close below $83,000 on October 25 would strengthen his bearish outlook for the rest of 2026. His warning comes as Bitcoin faces pressure well beyond its own price chart.
Why Bitcoin’s $80,000 Level MattersThe latest failed rally has already punished bullish traders. During one four-hour selloff, long positions accounted for $91.19 million of $95.22 million in crypto liquidations.
More concerning, Glassnode estimates that companies holding Bitcoin on their balance sheets paid about $80,000 per coin on average.
Falling below that level would put the average corporate treasury position into a loss. It would not automatically force companies to sell, but it could weaken confidence.
A plausible path to consider (in order).
Becomes void if Bitcoin gets and holds back above $83k
-Bitcoin weekly close below $83k (again)
-Fakeout confirmed (Oct 25)
-Fed does not raise rates (Oct 28)
-PCE comes in hot (Oct 29)
-Oil spikes over the Iran war (~$120)
-Long end…
— Benjamin Cowen (@benjamincowen) October 24, 2026 A separate BeInCrypto analysis identifies $77,876 as the next downside level if selling persists, followed by a support zone between roughly $76,700 and $72,500.
US spot Bitcoin ETFs also lost about $322 million on October 22, suggesting institutional buying has weakened.
What Happens to Bitcoin Next Week?The calendar offers little relief. The Federal Reserve meets October 27–28, with Cowen expecting interest rates to stay unchanged. September inflation data follows on October 29.
Oil adds another complication. Brent settled at $116.72 on Friday as Middle East supply fears intensified. Expensive energy could keep inflation elevated, while rising Treasury yields make speculative investments less attractive.
Bitcoin’s Extreme Volatility in OctoberHistory also gives bears ammunition. Binance Research puts Bitcoin’s average decline during previous US midterm election years at 56%. But that record covers only three Bitcoin cycles, making it a warning rather than a reliable prediction.
There is also a clear way for Bitcoin to break Cowen’s bearish scenario.
For now, the immediate test is whether buyers defend $80,000. A sustained recovery above $83,000 would weaken the bearish case.
Losing $80,000 could expose Bitcoin to another wave of selling just as November’s US midterm elections approach.
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Siding with prosecutor Eduardo Taiano, Judge Marcelo Martínez de Giorgi cleared all 11 people under investigation, Kelsier's Hayden Davis included. The order is not yet final.
Argentine judge dismisses LIBRA memecoin case against Milei
Original Image Credits: Gage Skidmore / flickr.com
Posted October 23, 2026 at 11:05 pm ET.
Argentine federal judge Marcelo Martínez de Giorgi on Oct. 23 dismissed the LIBRA memecoin criminal case against President Javier Milei, presidential Secretary-General Karina Milei and nine others, including Kelsier Ventures’ Hayden Davis, ruling that the events fit no crime.
Granting federal prosecutor Eduardo Taiano‘s request, the judge found his opinion properly grounded in the evidence and, absent any independent accusation, ruled as asked, according to an Unchained translation of the 60-page decision. The dismissal cites article 336, section 3 of Argentina’s national code of criminal procedure and adds the standard line that the proceedings leave the reputations of those investigated intact. None of the 11 was ever formally questioned as a suspect.
The ruling, which circulated through Argentine media, had not been posted on the judiciary’s official website as of Friday evening.
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Why the Judge Found No Crime On fraud, the judge granted that a sitting president’s backing could lend a project unusual reach and sway how far some buyers trusted it, but wrote, per the Unchained translation, that this did not necessarily mean anyone was given a false picture of reality. He also cautioned against inferring fraud only from the final split of gains and losses, and agreed with Taiano that the record did not establish any criminally relevant deception.
He found no official act tied to the project and no use of public resources, rejecting the claims of abuse of authority and negotiations incompatible with public office against Javier Milei. As for Karina Milei, he wrote that the evidence did not establish any concrete illicit exchange, or that she had acted as a paid go-between for access to her brother, the accusation two opposition lawmakers made in the original complaint.
Ruling Not Yet Final The decision orders the file archived only once final. The judge removed five investors as private plaintiffs on July 3; a federal appeals panel upheld that on Sept. 4. On Sept. 16, they asked the federal criminal cassation court to reinstate them. Unchained could not confirm the outcome or whether anyone will appeal.
The 2025 Collapse Milei promoted LIBRA in a Feb. 14, 2025, X post as a private project to fund small Argentine businesses. The token’s market cap peaked at $4.56 billion that night and was down more than 94% within 11 hours of its debut, Cointelegraph reported, drawing on Dexscreener data. Milei deleted the post and wrote hours later that he had no connection to the venture and had not known its details.
In May 2025, Circle froze $57 million in USDC linked to the scandal. A New York federal judge on Sept. 29 dismissed with prejudice an investor lawsuit against Kelsier Labs, Davis and others.
Related Listen: Why Did Hunter Biden Launch a Meme Coin? Partly to Troll Trump
AI-assisted content: This article was produced with the assistance of AI tools and was reviewed, edited, and fact-checked by a member of the Unchained editorial team before publication.
Starknet got an overwhelming vote approval to become an independent layer 1 (L1) chain, but suffered a massive DeFi activity blow. The Ethereum L2 saw its total value locked (TVL) drop by 3.7x (73%) from $158M to $42M on 22nd October.
The crash was triggered by Extended, a decentralized perpetual futures exchange, which migrated from Starknet to Circle-backed Arc blockchain. The platform had a strategic partnership with Circle and sought higher performance.
Extended migrated $120M in TVL, suggesting that it was the sole driver of Starknet’s DeFi activity.
Source: DeFiLlama Similarly, Starknet’s stablecoin liquidity dropped by 75% from $147M to $37M over the same period. The bridged volumes also crashed, underscoring the dominance the Extended had in the L2.
Will Starknet hold up after 93% support for L1 migration? That said, Starknet plans to transition from an Ethereum L2 to an independent L1. The Starknet team, led by Eli Ben-Sasson, first floated the idea in early October.
Ben-Sasson argued that Ethereum’s post-quantum plan is too slow and may undermine the chain’s security plans amid increasing double threats from advanced AI models and quantum breakthroughs.
A formal proposal for the same was put to a governance vote on 15th October. The proposal got massive 93% support, urging Starknet to research ways to become an L1.
Source: Starknet governance Following the vote, Sasson said StarkWare and the Starknet Foundation will allocate resources to begin the research. He added,
STRK will remain the token of the network. Any path to transition to an L1 will be brought to a community vote. This is a huge shift and a milestone, but the AI and quantum challenges ahead require it.
Despite the overwhelming vote approval, however, STRK’s price chart was surprisingly negative.
Starknet’s STRK reverses October gains In early October, the L1 proposal sent STRK rallying by over +120% from $0.05 to $0.12. However, what followed was intense profit-taking, triggering a 58% loss and effectively reversing October’s gains.
Source: STRK/USDT, TradingView In fact, the pullback slipped below the EMA (exponential moving average) band. Simply put, STRK flipped bearish and shed another 7% on 22nd October. Unless the broader market sentiment improves, STRK could stay below the EMA bands for a while.
Final Summary Starknet TVL has crashed by 73% after Extended perps platform migrated $120M to Arc. Team plans to begin L1 research pathways, but STRK reversed all of October’s gains.
Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.
Disclosure. PANews may publish sponsored content, partner content, advertisements, affiliate links, event promotions, and market commentary involving Web3 projects, service providers, or financial products. PANews personnel, contributors, or affiliates may hold digital assets or other interests related to covered topics. See our Terms of Service.
A well-known trader noted that altcoins have fallen near their support levels, and plans to gradually go long amid bearish market sentiment.
Renowned trader Doctor Profit stated in a post that altcoins have dropped roughly 10% since he exited his altcoin positions when Bitcoin reached $86,000. Doctor Profit added that current market sentiment is extremely bearish, and the altcoin market is sitting near support levels, so he plans to gradually establish long positions in select altcoins.
2 minutes ago
US retail investors’ bottom-fishing in semiconductor leveraged ETFs takes a hit, with SOXL plunging 20.5% in a single day.
FactSet data shows that Direxion Daily Semiconductor Bull 3X Shares (SOXL) drew $6.1 billion in inflows last week, a new single-week record. Investors were betting on a rebound in chip stocks, but SOXL still dropped 10.8% this week, marking its third straight weekly decline, with a cumulative fall of over 43% since October. Inflows continued through Thursday, but SOXL plunged 20.5% that day, its largest single-day drop since June 23. By comparison, non-leveraged iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX) fell 6.8% on the same day, with a cumulative decline of around 15.9% since October. SOXL uses derivatives to track three times the daily performance of the semiconductor index, amplifying both gains and downside risks. The semiconductor sector is under pressure mainly due to market skepticism about the return on investment in AI infrastructure. Investors are reassessing whether tech giants’ aggressive spending can meet earnings expectations. Earlier, AI chip demand lifted semiconductor stocks, with SOXX’s year-to-date gain once nearing 59%, but recent sell-offs have tested its rally. Mike Reynolds, vice president of investment strategy at Glenmede, noted that semiconductors are highly sensitive to AI infrastructure development, and AI-related trades are currently facing some doubt. He added that after strong stock rallies and valuation expansions, investors’ re-examination of the AI theme’s potential returns is a healthy market move. Meanwhile, all three major U.S. stock indexes closed lower on Friday, with the S&P 500 Information Technology sector falling for the third consecutive week, its longest weekly losing streak since March.
2 minutes ago
Initia discloses details of the MoveVM vulnerability attack, suffering losses of approximately $2.7 million, while the INIT token supply remains unaffected.
Initia disclosed that at 22:59 Beijing time on October 23, attackers exploited a MoveVM script cache vulnerability to bypass security checks, forging states to add unsupported WETH, iUSD, and USDC balances to their accounts without altering the total supply of the respective tokens. The native INIT token was not minted, and its total supply remained unaffected. Before the network was shut down, the attacker transferred 105 WETH and approximately 1.4 million AUSD0 via LayerZero, and around 1.08 million USDC via Noble and CCTP, with total assets valued at roughly $2.7 million. These assets have been converted into 1135.52 ETH. Initia's L1 and Rollups remain suspended. The team is fixing the vulnerability, with repairs and audits expected to be completed within days, and is working with security partners to recover the stolen assets. The official added that a full incident analysis report will be released later, and reminded users to beware of unofficial links, messages, and statements.
2 minutes ago
Analyst: Bitcoin has seen notable pullbacks in every prior U.S. midterm election cycle, and its key support level of $73,000 requires close attention.
Crypto analyst Ali Charts wrote in a post that as the November 3 US midterm elections approach, investors may overlook the recurring Bitcoin pullbacks seen in previous election cycles. He believes this election could again bring significant volatility, with downside risks worth noting, and his key support level to watch is $73,000. According to his statistics, Bitcoin saw pullbacks of 72%, 65%, 52%, and 27% during the US midterm election cycles in 2010, 2014, 2018, and 2022 respectively. However, he emphasized that correlation does not equal causation; the elections themselves may not be the cause of the drops, and these pullbacks are also influenced by Bitcoin’s overall market cycle, liquidity conditions, and investor sentiment.
Q4 returns show a similar pattern: Bitcoin fell 16.70%, 42.16%, and 14.75% in Q4 of 2014, 2018, and 2022 respectively. The only exception was 2010, when it rose 391%—though Bitcoin was still in its early stages back then. As a result, three of the past four midterm election years saw negative Q4 returns.
Regarding future price action, Ali Charts noted that the $73,000 level is near the average acquisition cost of Bitcoin’s current short-term holders, making it a key area to monitor the positioning of recent investors. He pointed out that in an established bull market, Bitcoin often finds support near the short-term holder average cost after a significant pullback. He believes that if selling pressure accelerates after the November 3 elections, pushing Bitcoin back toward $73,000, this zone will be a critical level to test whether buyers are still willing to uphold the overall bullish trend. If prices rebound sustainably from this area, it will reinforce the bullish thesis. For trading, he will wait for signs of selling pressure drying up and demand reemerging before considering opening long positions.
2 minutes ago
SpaceX’s $40 billion off-balance-sheet debt financing is facing pressure on pricing negotiations amid turmoil in the AI market.
According to Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter, SpaceX is negotiating a $40 billion off-balance-sheet debt financing plan, which would use a special purpose vehicle (SPV) to purchase Nvidia chips to support its AI business expansion. The structure is designed to keep the related liabilities off SpaceX’s balance sheet, preserving its investment-grade credit rating. However, recent turmoil in the AI sector has pushed up industry borrowing costs, complicating pricing negotiations. Banks led by Goldman Sachs are discussing the plan with investors led by Apollo; Apollo-backed Atlas SP would manage the entity, with Pimco also considering participation.
Previously, yields on some subordinated debt were discussed in the mid-8% to 9% range, but recent volatility has prompted investors to reevaluate pricing, and the two sides remain in talks. SpaceX’s financial filings this week also revealed that last year, xAI had attempted to raise up to $20 billion in off-balance-sheet debt via a sale-leaseback arrangement with Valor Equity Partners. Auditors classified the deal as a “failed sale-leaseback arrangement”, leading SpaceX to eventually record roughly $13 billion of the sum as its own debt. The proposed structure aims to avoid a repeat of that outcome.
2 minutes ago
South Korean stock market's retail war chest shrank by 36.5%; retail investors continued net buying, but capital replenishment has slowed.
Data from Korea Financial Investment Association shows that as of October 22, investor deposits at South Korean securities firms fell to 88.68 trillion won, a drop of around 51 trillion won from the all-time high of 139.69 trillion won recorded on June 4, representing a 36.5% decline and returning to levels seen at the start of the year. The balance dipped below 90 trillion won on October 21, marking the first such drop in nearly nine months.
Investor deposits refer to funds held in securities firm accounts that have not yet been used to purchase assets such as stocks, and are typically viewed as potential buying power. The decline in the balance can stem from either stock purchases or fund withdrawals, so the full drop cannot be equated to capital exiting the stock market.
Retail investors continue to make net purchases. Between June 4 and October 23, individual investors bought a net 44.17 trillion won in the KOSPI market and 3.15 trillion won in the KOSDAQ market, while net purchases of ETFs over the same period reached 28.25 trillion won. The report notes that unlike the first half of the year, where new capital inflows exceeded stock purchases, the pace of capital replenishment in the second half has lagged behind outflows, leading to the continuous decline in deposit balances.
The KOSPI index closed at 5550.30 points on October 23, having fallen nearly 20% over the past month. A securities industry official said the recent decline is indeed excessive relative to earnings fundamentals, but the AI sector, which previously drove gains, still faces credit risk concerns, making it too early to expect a sustained rebound.
24 October 2026 | 08:43 U.S. Bitcoin ETFs ended a two-week outflow streak with a $301 million weekly inflow, but BlackRock’s IBIT supplied all of it while the other funds combined lost money.
Key Takeaways ▸Weekly net inflow: $301 million, Friday incomplete
▸IBIT took $665 million on Monday alone
▸All funds excluding IBIT lost $264.5 million
▸First positive week after two losing weeks
The figures come from Farside Investors’ daily flow data for October 19 to 23, checked on October 24.
Five sessions, one decisive day Session All funds IBIT Other funds Mon, Oct 19 +526.7 +665.2 −138.5 Tue, Oct 20 +23.2 +29.9 −6.7 Wed, Oct 21 +524.8 +235.0 +289.8 Thu, Oct 22 −635.6 −254.1 −381.5 Fri, Oct 23 (incomplete) −137.9 −110.3 −27.6 Week +301.2 +565.7 −264.5 Monday’s $526.7 million inflow was entirely IBIT’s doing. The fund took in $665.2 million while Fidelity’s FBTC lost $83.6 million and Grayscale’s GBTC lost $54.9 million. Wednesday was the only day when most funds bought: seven took in money, led by IBIT’s $235.0 million and FBTC’s $212.7 million. Thursday’s $635.6 million outflow was also widespread, with five funds losing money and ARK’s ARKB alone shedding $109.4 million.
Over the week, the first three sessions added $1.07 billion and the last two removed $773.5 million, about 72% of it.
Without IBIT, the week was negative IBIT’s net inflow of $565.7 million was larger than the market’s entire weekly gain. Elsewhere, FBTC lost $116.6 million over the five sessions and ARKB $99.6 million. IBIT also led Friday’s withdrawals with $110.3 million, though that was roughly 0.17% of the $65.88 billion in net assets BlackRock reported on October 23.
The result still ends a run of withdrawals. Farside’s data shows outflows of $678.9 million in the week of October 5 and $228.4 million in the week of October 12, so this week recovered about a third of that $907 million. Fund-level data does not show who was buying, only where the money landed, a pattern that has also shaped how Ethereum ETF totals should be read.
What an outflow does and doesn’t tell you Flow figures track creations and redemptions: shares issued or retired by authorized participants, the firms that deal directly with each trust. Shares that simply change hands between investors on the exchange do not count.
Since the SEC allowed in-kind creations and redemptions for crypto ETPs in July 2025, those firms can take Bitcoin out of a trust instead of cash, and IBIT’s filing for the quarter ended March 31, 2026 records in-kind deliveries. Coins that leave a fund can be sold, held or hedged, and daily flow data does not say which. Thursday’s $635.6 million outflow was not necessarily $635.6 million of Bitcoin sold on the market.
The test for next week VanEck’s Friday figure: the missing HODL entry will finalize the weekly total.
How many funds buy: inflows spread across funds, as on Wednesday, would point to wider demand than another week carried by IBIT.
FBTC’s direction: the second-largest fund by cumulative inflows lost money this week despite one strong session.
This article is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice. ETF flow figures are subject to updates and revisions.
Author
Alex is Editor-in-Chief of Coindoo and co-founder of Millennial Media Group, with nearly a decade of experience covering financial markets - crypto first, then everything else. It started in 2016 with Bitcoin. Like most people at the time, he didn't fully understand it - so he kept digging. Blockchain, tokenomics, the projects, the cycles. That curiosity never stopped, and eventually pulled him into traditional markets too: equities, commodities, macro. Not because he left crypto behind, but because you can't properly understand one without the other. What drives him is straightforward: he wants to know why something is happening, not just that it's happening. Most market coverage stops at the headline - price up, price down, here's a chart. Alex finds that kind of reporting actively unhelpful. If you walk away from an article without understanding the mechanism behind the move, what did you actually learn? He holds a degree in Tourism from New Bulgarian University - not the most obvious path into financial markets, but markets have a way of pulling in people who are simply too curious to stay out. He has authored over 200 in-depth analyses and more than 10,000 articles across crypto and traditional finance. He still thinks every day in markets teaches him something new. That's probably why he hasn't stopped.
Thursday, October 22, American bitcoin ETFs experienced $635.49 million in net outflows, their heaviest single-day loss since June 25. BlackRock and Fidelity account for nearly three-quarters of the withdrawals. In one day, this movement erased nearly 60% of the inflows recorded over the previous three sessions.
In brief The spot bitcoin ETFs lost $635.49 million on Thursday, a record since June 25. BlackRock and Fidelity account for about 74% of the outflows, while MSBT remains the only fund in the green. Despite this decline, the week maintains a positive balance. However, the monthly balance has turned negative again. Bitcoin ETFs, inflows abruptly give way to outflows The day before, purchases had extended to eight funds. However, as early as Thursday, the trend reversed: investors withdrew $635.49 million, erasing nearly 60% of the $1.08 billion accumulated over three sessions.
The two main funds illustrate this reversal. BlackRock’s IBIT and Fidelity’s FBTC had attracted $447.70 million on Wednesday. The next day, they recorded a combined outflow of $471.51 million. Their combined balance over these two days thus turns slightly negative.
This turnaround accompanies the bitcoin decline. After nearing $85,000 on Wednesday, the cryptocurrency slipped below $81,000 on Thursday. ETF flows tracked this decrease almost immediately.
BlackRock and Fidelity account for the majority of outflows In detail, IBIT lost $254.05 million and FBTC $217.46 million. Together, they represent about 74% of the session’s outflows. Other funds also declined: Ark’s ARKB and 21Shares lost $109.43 million, Grayscale’s GBTC $29.53 million, and Bitwise’s BITB $27.35 million.
Only one fund escaped this trend. Morgan Stanley’s MSBT attracted $2.33 million, an inflow nonetheless insufficient to offset withdrawals from other products.
Meanwhile, trading volumes reached $2.56 billion. Net assets of bitcoin ETFs dropped nearly $5 billion, to $104.71 billion. The price decline thus amplified the assets under management downturn.
A still positive weekly balance Despite this difficult session, bitcoin ETFs still show $442.67 million in net inflows over the week. However, the monthly balance has turned negative again, with a deficit of $174.50 million. The outflows recorded over two weeks already testify to this fragility.
Recent large flow variations suggest that investors react quickly to market movements. For now, inflows do not necessarily reflect sustained demand.
Ether ETFs follow the same trajectory. After $14.96 million inflows on Wednesday, they had $110.50 million outflows on Thursday. BlackRock’s ETHA lost $75.45 million, ETHB $17.17 million, Grayscale’s Mini Trust $10.69 million, and ETHE $9.56 million. Only Fidelity’s FETH attracted capital, with $2.37 million. Net assets in the segment fell back to $14.57 billion.
ETFs remain a major access channel to bitcoin. However, the speed of these reversals raises a question: will investors hold their positions when prices retreat?
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Fenelon L.
Passionné par le Bitcoin, j'aime explorer les méandres de la blockchain et des cryptos et je partage mes découvertes avec la communauté. Mon rêve est de vivre dans un monde où la vie privée et la liberté financière sont garanties pour tous, et je crois fermement que Bitcoin est l'outil qui peut rendre cela possible.
DISCLAIMER
The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this article belong solely to the author, and should not be taken as investment advice. Do your own research before taking any investment decisions.
Bitwise’s Bitcoin analysis published today notes that despite the price being confined to a narrow range, there is a significant divergence among investor groups.
The company stated that Bitcoin ETF investors are showing resistance around the approximately $82,000 cost zone. Below this, short-term investors are drawing attention to the “True Market Mean” indicator around $77,600, with a cost level of approximately $74,800.
According to Bitwise, these two indicators are important for assessing the short-term direction of the market. In particular, the indicator around $77,600 stands out as one of the reference points used to monitor the profit and loss status of invested capital.
Another notable point in the report was the tightening of volatility. It was stated that Bitcoin’s 30 and 60-day trading ranges narrowed to 1.8% and 3%, respectively. The expected volatility in the options market was also noted to be approaching the lowest levels of its three-year spread.
In contrast, the negative net position change of long-term investors indicates that this group is diversifying its holdings. Bitwise assessed that these sales could contribute to the price remaining relatively flat.
*This is not investment advice.
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TLDR: Crypto prediction markets on Kalshi and Polymarket reached a record $2.7 billion in weekly notional volume, largely from short-term Bitcoin and other crypto price contracts. Bloomberg reported that crypto ranked second to sports on both platforms, although the report did not break down volume by asset, venue, or contract. Coinbase’s event-contract product is operated by Kalshi, giving the exchange access to markets without running the underlying marketplace itself. State disputes over sports-related contracts could influence expansion; Michigan’s agreement with Coinbase limited sports contracts but did not resolve the wider legal question. Crypto prediction markets on Kalshi and Polymarket logged a combined $2.7 billion in weekly notional volume last week. Bitcoin and other short-term crypto price contracts drove much of that volume. Crypto ranks second only to sports on both platforms said. The record reflects participation in event-based contracts tied to digital-asset prices.
According to Dune Analytics data cited by Bloomberg, crypto exchanges are seeking new activity as spot trading volumes decline. Coinbase offers Kalshi-powered crypto prediction markets to eligible customers. Legal challenges to sports contracts in U.S. states could influence how widely exchanges choose to expand.
The report identifies short-term price moves as a draw. A contract ties a position to an outcome over a specified period, so activity can build around Bitcoin and other token prices. These crypto prediction markets track contract turnover, rather than investment flows into coins. The weekly total covers event contracts on Kalshi and Polymarket, not spot purchases or sales on crypto exchanges. Together, these categories measure activity separately from spot trading.
Bitcoin Price Bets Help Push Weekly Crypto Volume on Kalshi and Polymarket to Record $2.7B
Bloomberg, citing data compiled by a Dune Analytics user, reported that weekly notional volume in crypto-related contracts on Kalshi and Polymarket hit a record $2.7 billion last week,… pic.twitter.com/pAS4rbuQAR
— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) October 24, 2026
Notional volume counts the face value of contracts traded; it is not the amount users deposited or the platforms’ revenue. Contracts can change hands before resolution, adding turnover without creating a new event. Crypto prediction markets can report high activity even when deposits, unique participants, or concentration among traders remain unknown. The number measures gross trading activity, not the amount of capital at risk. It also cannot show whether traders expect Bitcoin prices to rise or fall.
Crypto ranked second only to sports on both platforms, Bloomberg reported. That places the category ahead of other event types, while sports remained the largest source of activity. Bitcoin’s continuous price movement creates frequent outcomes for contracts with short time horizons, and other tokens widen the range of markets. The headline total alone cannot show whether activity clustered around one venue or coin. One week’s volume does not establish whether that pace will persist.
Bitcoin Bets Drive Crypto Exchanges Toward Prediction Markets Exchanges are moving into crypto prediction markets as spot activity cools. The Financial Times reported that crypto companies are adding prediction products while spot trading volumes have weakened. Some are building venues; others are partnering with established operators. Event contracts offer another product inside familiar trading apps, helping platforms seek activity beyond spot trades and compete for customer attention.
Coinbase’s crypto prediction markets are operated by Kalshi, according to Coinbase’s help center. The partnership gives Coinbase access to event contracts without building an exchange operator itself. Coinbase’s markets cover crypto prices and other outcomes, subject to regional availability and eligibility. Coinbase says BTC and ETH price contracts settle using a 60-second CF Benchmarks average.Kalshi determines outcomes under each contract’s rules. The arrangement shows how dedicated operators can power prediction products inside broader financial platforms.
Sports contracts face legal challenges in several states. Regulators argue that event contracts tied to games fall under state gambling laws, while platforms cite federal derivatives oversight. Michigan’s gaming regulator said Coinbase agreed to stop offering new sports contracts in the state and close existing positions by October 10. The restriction applied to sports contracts, not all event markets. The agreement did not settle the wider dispute. As reported, dozens of states have taken legal action over sports-related contracts.
These disputes may shape how far crypto exchanges expand. State-by-state restrictions can complicate nationwide launches, while unclear product boundaries raise compliance costs. Coinbase’s Michigan agreement shows that access to one category can be limited even as the broader product grows. Exchanges must weigh expected demand against legal risk before adding markets or opening them in new jurisdictions. Court rulings could change product availability.
Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.
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In the landscape of digital asset markets, understanding the intricacies of Bitcoin's market cycle is crucial. This article dives into the dynamics that define the cryptocurrency's value, exploring historical trends, wealth distribution, and indicators that shed light on market strength and investor sentiment.
I. Analyzing Bitcoin Market Dynamics: The intricate dynamics of Bitcoin's market behavior are central to understanding the cryptocurrency's valuation and the factors that influence its price movements.
A. Historical Comparison of Market Cap and Realized Cap:
In traditional financial markets, Market Cap is a go-to metric for evaluating an asset's value. However, the digital asset realm introduces Realized Cap as a game-changing alternative. Realized Cap, derived from on-chain data, goes beyond the surface and provides a nuanced view of an asset's worth. By aggregating the acquisition cost for each unit at the time it last changed hands, Realized Cap offers a more insightful approximation of the capital invested in Bitcoin.
This historical comparison between Market Cap and Realized Cap unveils compelling trends. Notably, during the deepest drawdowns of bear markets, the market cap has occasionally dropped below the realized cap. These instances are brief and painful intervals, indicating a departure from the norm. For the majority of Bitcoin's market history, the market cap has consistently traded above the realized cap. This persistent trend suggests that, aside from occasional downturns, the market generally holds an unrealized profit in aggregate.
B. Understanding Unrealized Profits and Recovery Trends:
The relationship between market cap and realized cap provides a lens into the realm of unrealized profits and recovery trends. During bear markets, the realized cap tends to plateau or experience a slight drawdown. This phenomenon occurs as coins change hands, and their values are reevaluated to lower acquisition prices. Simultaneously, these coins gradually migrate towards longer-term investor wallets, where they remain dormant for extended periods.
This process can be vividly illustrated through the Realized HODL Waves, which visually represent shifts in wealth distribution by age cohort. These waves capture the ebb and flow of supply and demand forces in the market as capital rotates between investors. During market uptrends, older coins are spent and transferred from long-term holders to newer investors, expanding warmer bands and contracting cooler bands. Conversely, during market downtrends, speculators lose interest, and coins gradually shift to longer-term holders, resulting in expanded cooler bands and contracted warmer bands.
This intricate dance of supply and demand forces contributes to the current equilibrium in the market. A slight positive inflow of newer investors is noted, resembling conditions observed during the recovery phases of significant bear markets in both 2016 and 2019.
Source: Glassnode .insights
II. Wealth Distribution and Capital Rotation: Understanding the intricate dynamics of wealth distribution and capital rotation within the Bitcoin ecosystem is key to deciphering market trends and gauging the sentiment of investors.
A. Realized HODL Waves and Shifting Wealth Distribution:
Realized HODL Waves emerge as a powerful tool, offering a graphical representation of the shifting landscape of wealth distribution within the Bitcoin market. These waves serve as a dynamic lens through which Glassnode can observe the movement of capital between different age cohorts of coins.
During market uptrends, the waves reveal a fascinating trend: older coins, held by long-term investors, are strategically spent and transferred to newer investors. This results in the expansion of warmer bands on the HODL Waves chart, indicating increased activity among short-term holders. Simultaneously, cooler bands contract as long-term holders release their positions. This pattern signifies a willingness among long-term holders to capitalize on the rising market, suggesting confidence in the ongoing uptrend.
Conversely, during market downtrends, a shift occurs. Speculators, having lost interest in the face of declining prices, gradually transfer their coins to longer-term holders. This transition is reflected in the contraction of warmer bands and the expansion of cooler bands on the HODL Waves chart. The movement of capital from short-term to long-term hands during bear markets underscores a strategic decision by investors to weather the storm and position themselves for potential future gains.
B. Age Bands and Capital Rotation Patterns:
To delve deeper into the nuances of capital rotation, examining specific age bands provides valuable insights. Certain age bands exhibit relative insensitivity to market cycles, representing coins that have remained dormant for at least three years. While constituting a relatively small share of the total wealth held in Bitcoin, these coins offer stability and resilience, often acquired during the 2018-2020 period.
On the other end of the spectrum, cycle-sensitive age bands encompass coins actively involved in specific market cycles. The 6-month to 3-year age band, for instance, aligns with investors who were active during the 2020-2023 cycle. These coins witness peak accumulation during bear market lows and exert distribution pressure near bull market highs. The distinctive patterns within these age bands serve as markers for market sentiment, providing valuable cues for investors.
Analyzing the youngest age band cohorts, attributed to short-term investors and speculators, reveals a closer connection to the inflow of demand. These are actively traded coins that have recently changed hands, moving inversely to the 6-month to 3-year cohort. They swell during uptrends, reflecting new buyers entering the market, and compress during bear markets as interest and activity wane.
Synthesizing these age band dynamics into a comprehensive view of capital rotation, Glassnode observes two dominant cohorts that significantly influence the market:
Short-Term Indicator [<1 month] (red): - Represents the realized capital or wealth portion moved in the last 30 days.
- Corresponds closely to the demand side, including new investors deploying fresh capital into the market.
Long-Term Indicator [1-2 years] (blue): - Peaks during the bear market bottom formation phase.
- Represents long-term and price-insensitive investors that accumulated during, and held throughout, the bear market.
Understanding the interplay between these two dominant cohorts provides a nuanced perspective on the prevailing market sentiment and the ongoing capital rotation within the Bitcoin holder base. This dynamic interaction lays the foundation for comprehending the broader market trends and making informed investment decisions.
Source: Glassnode Insights
III. Indicators of Market Strength: Assessing the strength of the Bitcoin market requires a nuanced understanding of the indicators that gauge the interplay between short-term and long-term investors. These indicators serve as crucial tools for investors seeking insights into market dynamics and potential shifts in sentiment.
A. Short-Term and Long-Term Indicators:
The Bitcoin market is shaped by the strategic movements of both short-term and long-term investors. Recognizing the significance of these two investor groups, Glassnode can utilize distinct indicators to illuminate their impact on market dynamics.
The Short-Term Indicator, representing realized capital or wealth moved within the last month, serves as a proxy for the demand side of the market. This cohort is primarily composed of new investors injecting fresh capital into the market. Their activities are pivotal in understanding the current appetite for Bitcoin and the dynamics of short-term trading.
Conversely, the Long-Term Indicator, covering the 1-2 year age band, takes center stage during the bear market bottom formation phase. This cohort comprises long-term, price-insensitive investors who accumulated Bitcoin during the bear market and held onto their positions. Their dominance is evident during bear markets when this indicator swells, holding more than 15% of the BTC capital. This structure underscores the conviction of accumulation and holding within the market.
The delicate balance between these two indicators is pivotal in understanding market conditions. During bear markets, the Long-Term Indicator often surpasses the Short-Term Indicator, illustrating the dominance of accumulation and holding conviction. However, as new capital flows into the market during recovery phases, the Short-Term Indicator gains momentum, surpassing the Long-Term Indicator. This pattern signifies an expansion of buy-side pressure as prices rally, attracting attention during bull markets.
B. Inter-Cycle Capital Rotation Ratio:
To quantitatively assess the ongoing capital rotation between long-term (supply) and short-term (demand) players, the Inter-Cycle Capital Rotation Ratio emerges as a valuable metric. This ratio is derived by measuring the difference between the wealth held by long-term investors (1-2 years) and short-term investors (<1 month). The current ratio, standing at 13%, echoes levels observed in 2016 and 2019, suggesting that the Bitcoin supply remains strongly dominated by the HODLer cohort. The majority of coins in circulation are now older than six months, indicating a prevailing sentiment aligned with historical bear market recovery phases.
This nuanced understanding of short-term and long-term indicators, combined with the Inter-Cycle Capital Rotation Ratio, provides investors with a comprehensive view of the ongoing market dynamics. It unveils the delicate equilibrium between supply and demand forces, offering valuable insights into potential shifts and the prevailing sentiment within the Bitcoin market. This information is instrumental for investors looking to make informed decisions in a dynamic and rapidly evolving cryptocurrency landscape.
IV. Investor Pain and Market Cycle Analysis: Examining the financial pressure on investors and understanding the pain points within the market provides a crucial dimension for comprehending Bitcoin's ongoing market cycle. This section delves into the models and metrics that illuminate the financial landscape for both short-term and long-term holders.
A. Modeling Financial Pressure on Investors:
To model financial pressure, on-chain cost basis models become invaluable tools. These models offer insights into the average cost basis for three distinct cohorts: short-term holders, long-term holders, and the market-wide average. Deviations from these cost bases signal periods of growing incentive for profit-taking or, conversely, panic selling when positions are underwater.
Analyzing the spot price in relation to each cohort's average cost basis allows us to identify zones of acute financial pain across the market. Periods where the spot price trades below the cost basis of all three cohorts indicate significant financial pressure. This alignment signals potential distress for investors, potentially leading to decisions such as profit-taking or panic selling.
B. NUPL Metrics and Decision Points:
Net Unrealized Profit/Loss (NUPL) metrics add another layer of sophistication to our analysis. NUPL indicates whether a particular cohort is holding unrealized losses (NUPL<0) or unrealized profits (NUPL>0) on average.
Both the wider market and the Long-Term Holder NUPL currently indicate positive values, suggesting that the average investor is in profit. However, for Short-Term Holders, their cost basis sits at $27.8k, resulting in the Short-Term Holder NUPL trading just slightly above neutral. This indicates that active investors are near their break-even level, emphasizing the importance of the $28k level as a crucial decision point for the market.
Source: Glassnode insights
Conclusion: This comprehensive analysis explores Bitcoin's market dynamics, wealth distribution, and indicators of market strength and investor pain. The current market structure echoes a recovery phase from a significant bear market, drawing parallels with historical trends. Understanding these patterns enhances our ability to navigate the complex world of cryptocurrency investments.
Over 200K Bitcoin Ordinal NFTs have been minted by a growing community of users, developers, and enthusiasts who are excited about the potential of native Bitcoin NFTs. But what exactly are ordinal NFTs, how do they work, and why are they different? This article will explore the potential of ordinal inscriptions, their impact on the Bitcoin community, and how to navigate the landscape securely.
The History of Ordinal NFTs Launched on Bitcoin mainnet by developer Casey Rodarmor on January 20, 2023, ordinal NFTs are simply the latest way to create NFTs on Bitcoin. While non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on Bitcoin aren’t a new concept, with layer-2 networks on top of Bitcoin such as Counterparty and Stacks already enabling Bitcoin-based NFTs, ordinal NFTs feature a fundamentally different architecture to other Bitcoin NFTs.
While ordinal NFTs were truly unlocked through the conceptualization of ordinal theory, ordinal NFTs as they exist today were made possible by the Segregated Witness (SegWit) and Taproot updates to the Bitcoin Protocol, which took place in 2017 and 2021, respectively.
It’s important to note that these updates were not made for the specific purpose of enabling these new types of NFTs. But since each update enlarged the amount of arbitrary data able to be stored on-chain within a block—meaning there was now space for images, videos, and even games—Ordinal NFTs were unintentionally made possible as a result of their deployment.
What Are Ordinal Inscriptions? Ordinals are means of creating Bitcoin NFTs by attaching data such as images, videos, and more to an individual satoshi on the base Bitcoin blockchain. Unlike their predecessors, ordinal NFTs don’t exist on a separate layer from Bitcoin. Rather, they use an arbitrary but logical ordering system called ordinal theory to give each individual Bitcoin satoshi a unique number. In this regard, ordinal NFTs are completely Bitcoin-native. They work without changes to the Bitcoin protocol, don’t require any extra layers, and are backward compatible with the network.
How Do Bitcoin NFTs Work? To understand how ordinal NFTs work, it’s important to make a distinction between the terms “ordinals” and “inscriptions,” both of which are used to refer to this new type of Bitcoin NFT.
Ordinals are a system for ordering sats in a way that creates the “non-fungible” property necessary to create NFTs.
Inscriptions are the contents of the ordinal NFT itself—the image, text, video, or any other arbitrary data that a user would consider synonymous with an NFT.
These NFTs can be best understood by drawing a parallel to non-Bitcoin NFTs, which are unique, 1-of-1 tokens that generally have two components: tokenID and metadata
TokenID Fungible tokens are interchangeable. For example, there’s no way to tell two different Ethereum coins apart, just like it’s impossible to distinguish one dollar from another. TokenIDs put the “non-fungible” in NFT—they provide each NFT with a unique barcode that enables users to differentiate tokens from one another.* A tokenID is what makes an NFT functionally unique.
*NFTs can have the same tokenID if they’re created by different smart contracts. In this case, the smart contract is how you differentiate one NFT from another.
Metadata In non-Bitcoin blockchains, metadata is the optional attachment of arbitrary data to a non-fungible token. It’s used to represent and showcase the vast range of art, in-game assets, profile pictures, financial assets, and more that have become synonymous with the word “NFT.”
How Are Bitcoin Ordinals Different from NFTs? The key difference between Bitcoin ordinals and more standard NFT types is their fluid nature. Because the Bitcoin protocol does not formally recognize ordinal theory, an ordinal can either be fungible or non-fungible. It depends completely on who owns the ordinal and whether they wish to preserve the individual satoshi.
For example, if a Bitcoin user does not recognize or care about an ordinal or the data attached to it, it can simply be used like any other Bitcoin. Ordinals are fungible in this way—they can be used to pay for network fees or sent as payment, though the arbitrary data will still stay attached. The same is not true of an Ethereum NFT. An Ethereum NFT is completely different from an Ethereum coin, and it’s impossible to mix up a fungible token with an NFT because the Ethereum Network treats each token type differently.
Ensuring Preparedness for Bitcoin Ordinal NFTs: Mitigating Scams As the popularity and adoption of Bitcoin ordinal NFTs continue to grow, it becomes increasingly important for individuals to be prepared and take precautions to safeguard themselves against potential scams and fraudulent activities. Here are some essential measures to consider in order to navigate the ordinal NFT landscape securely:
Education and Research: Stay informed about the fundamentals of Bitcoin ordinal NFTs and the associated technologies. Familiarize yourself with the underlying concepts, such as ordinal theory, as well as the technical aspects of Bitcoin and its protocol updates. Regularly follow reputable sources of information, including official project announcements, developer forums, and trustworthy industry publications, to stay up to date with the latest developments and best practices.
Thorough Due Diligence: Before engaging in any ordinal NFT transactions or investments, conduct comprehensive due diligence on the projects, platforms, and individuals involved. Verify the authenticity and reputation of the creators, developers, and marketplaces offering ordinal NFTs. Scrutinize their track records, community feedback, and reviews to assess their credibility and trustworthiness. Be cautious of potential red flags, such as unsolicited offers, vague or unrealistic promises, and unverified claims of exclusivity.
Authenticity Verification: Prioritize verifying the authenticity of ordinal NFTs before making any purchases or trades. Scrutinize the metadata, ownership history, and any accompanying certifications or proofs of authenticity provided by the creators. Leverage tools and services that enable blockchain analysis to verify the integrity and legitimacy of the ordinal NFTs, ensuring they have been minted on the Bitcoin blockchain and haven't been tampered with or counterfeited.
Trustworthy Marketplaces and Platforms: Exercise caution when utilizing ordinal NFT marketplaces and platforms. Opt for well-established, reputable platforms with robust security measures and transparent transaction processes. Thoroughly review the platform's terms of service, privacy policy, and dispute resolution mechanisms. Be wary of unauthorized or unofficial marketplaces, as they may be prone to scams or fraudulent activities.
Community Engagement: Participate in the Bitcoin ordinal NFT community and engage with fellow enthusiasts, developers, and experts. Active involvement in reputable forums, social media groups, and community-driven platforms can provide valuable insights, discussions, and alerts regarding potential scams or security risks. Collaborate with the community to share experiences, exchange knowledge, and collectively identify and report suspicious activities.
Exercise Caution with Financial Investments: If you intend to invest in ordinal NFTs as a financial endeavor, approach it with caution and adhere to sound investment practices. Conduct thorough research on market trends, historical performance, and the potential risks associated with ordinal NFT investments. Diversify your investments and set realistic expectations, being mindful of the inherent volatility and speculative nature of the market.
Secure Wallet Management: Ensure the security of your digital wallet, where you store your Bitcoin and ordinal NFTs. Utilize hardware wallets or reputable software wallets with robust security features and multi-factor authentication. Regularly update your wallet software and maintain strong, unique passwords. Avoid sharing sensitive wallet information or private keys with anyone and keep backup copies of your wallet offline or in secure locations.
Multi-Signature wallets like Orosign can provide an additional layer of security against hackers. Multisig wallets require two or more private keys to authorize a transaction, making it much harder for hackers to gain access to your funds. In addition, Orosign is completely open to support chains beyond Ethereum like Bitcoin or BRC20
Orosign is a Self-Managing Mobile App For Digital Assets that serves as an interface of Orochi Ecosystem, which can integrate multiple games and native decentralized applications. Orosign allows users to interact with all applications on Orochi Computation Layer and empowers customers to organize and manage their digital assets.
Orosign is designed for ease of use, even for non-crypto users. You can send, receive or store various cryptocurrencies and digital assets safely and securely with Orosign mobile app.
Currently, Orosign allows customers to create their own multisignature wallet with minimal cost as well as customize smart contracts to meet their own expectations. Off-chain signing and verification are used to secure the signing process. All proofs are verified independently with secp256k1, which is the most widely used elliptic curve in the blockchain space, thanks to its 256 bits security level. Thus, the fund is safe as long as the majority of private keys are safe
Remember, maintaining a vigilant and informed approach is paramount when navigating the world of Bitcoin ordinal NFTs. By educating yourself, conducting due diligence, securing your wallet, verifying authenticity, utilizing trusted platforms, engaging with the community, and exercising prudence in financial decisions, you can enhance your preparedness and minimize the risks associated with scams and fraudulent activities in the Bitcoin ordinal NFT ecosystem.
Conclusion Bitcoin ordinal NFTs represent an exciting development in the world of non-fungible tokens. With their integration into the Bitcoin ecosystem and the ability to attach arbitrary data to individual satoshis, ordinal NFTs offer a unique and innovative approach to digital ownership and creativity. However, as with any emerging technology, it is crucial to approach ordinal NFTs with awareness and caution.
By understanding the fundamentals of ordinal theory, staying informed about updates to the Bitcoin protocol, and conducting thorough research on projects, platforms, and individuals involved in ordinal NFTs, individuals can mitigate the risks associated with scams and fraudulent activities. Furthermore, securing digital wallets, verifying the authenticity of ordinal NFTs, and utilizing trustworthy marketplaces and platforms are essential steps to ensure a safe and reliable experience within the ordinal NFT landscape.
The Bitget hacker has moved $19.48 million in 52 transfers, almost entirely in Bitcoin, as Arkham tracks fresh outflows from wallets linked to the exchange’s September breach.
Summary
Arkham tracked $19.48 million across 52 transfers, with Bitcoin accounting for $19.33 million. Hacker-linked wallets sent $78.01 million to new addresses between Oct. 15 and Oct. 23. Arkham valued remaining labeled holdings at $242.54 million, mostly held in Bitcoin. The latest transfers’ destinations remain unidentified, leaving potential laundering unconfirmed. Arkham put the transfers between 10:02 UTC on Oct. 21 and 02:48 UTC on Oct. 24, with Bitcoin accounting for $19.33 million and ETH making up the rest. Its thread said almost all the funds went to new addresses.
The blockchain intelligence firm framed its update as a question.
“Is the Bitget Hacker laundering the stolen funds?”
Arkham’s posts do not name an exchange, mixer, or over-the-counter desk receiving the latest transfers. The update documents money leaving labeled wallets, without establishing whether those assets were sold, cashed out, or recovered.
Bitget hacker movements total $78 million since Oct. 15 Across a longer reporting window, Arkham said the attacker had sent $78.01 million to new addresses since Oct. 15. Its daily breakdown showed $23.31 million moving on Oct. 15, followed by $8.68 million on Oct. 16 and $1.15 million on Oct. 17.
Another $10.51 million moved on Oct. 18. After no recorded movement on Oct. 19, the firm listed $15.13 million on Oct. 20, $11.74 million on Oct. 21, $184,160 on Oct. 22, and $7.3 million on Oct. 23.
The dates in Arkham’s opening post cover 64 hours and 46 minutes. A later post in the same thread described the $19.48 million as moving over “the past 48 hours,” leaving a mismatch between its shorthand description and the precise timestamps.
Using the firm’s rounded asset figures, Bitcoin represented approximately 99.2% of that $19.48 million. The implied ETH component was $150,000, although Arkham did not provide an exact token quantity in the opening post.
Arkham’s remaining balance uses a $350 million baseline In its thread, Arkham valued the hacker’s remaining labeled holdings at $242.54 million, including 2,960.01 BTC worth $241.99 million. It listed smaller balances on Ethereum, Hypercore, Solana and Tron.
The firm described that balance as 69% of a $350 million theft. Bitget’s own accounting puts the incident at approximately $387.5 million, after revising its initial $351.6 million estimate.
In its Sep. 25 recovery notice, the exchange said the revision included Zcash and TRON assets omitted from the first calculation. Bitget attributed the change to a more complete classification of the original transfers and said it did not represent further theft.
Against Bitget’s $387.5 million estimate, Arkham’s $242.54 million snapshot equals approximately 62.6%. Neither percentage establishes how much has been recovered, because the figures compare remaining labeled holdings with dollar estimates from the original incident.
Arkham data shows $239.34 million, including approximately 2,958 BTC valued at $238.79 million.
Source: Arkham Earlier tracing identified CoinJoin and cross-chain routes Fund movements linked to the attack began before October. As crypto.news previously reported, AMLBot traced roughly four BTC into CoinJoin in September, describing the activity as an apparent effort to obscure stolen funds.
AMLBot’s account followed assets from TRON into USDT, across to Ethereum through USDT0, and through ETH swaps and THORChain before they reached Bitcoin. The firm said approximately 4.59 BTC emerged from that route before the Bitcoin was split into smaller amounts.
Independent tracing by Bitquery documented other September conversions through THORChain and Chainflip. Its investigation matched 66 swaps to 126.71 BTC in payments by 14:38 UTC on Sep. 25, while identifying two swaps still waiting at that snapshot.
Those historical routes do not establish the destinations of Arkham’s latest transfers. The October screenshots contain transaction graphs but no readable transaction-level evidence connecting the new outflows to the same services.
Bitget says withdrawals have resumed while recovery continues Bitget’s incident explainer, updated Oct. 20, says its phased withdrawal restoration finished on Oct. 2 after BTC, ETH and USDT services reopened in September. The company says customer account balances remain unaffected and that it has identified no further unauthorized transfers following containment.
In the same explainer, Bitget attributed the breach to a vulnerability in a third-party security product. The company said the attacker obtained high-level internal credentials and submitted fraudulent withdrawal commands that bypassed existing risk controls. Bitget said the affected systems were isolated and the vulnerability was fixed.
Earlier coverage of the withdrawal reopening and reserves recorded CEO Gracy Chen’s statement that the Protection Fund had returned above $300 million on Sep. 30. Bitget has said the fund would absorb the financial loss from the breach.
The Sep. 25 notice names Mandiant and SlowMist as investigation partners and publishes receiving addresses across Ethereum-compatible networks, XRP Ledger, Zcash and TRON. Its recovery section says some assets had already been frozen through coordination with industry partners, but does not give an aggregate frozen amount in that notice.
The exchange’s recovery program offers separate 5% rewards for eligible voluntary actions that directly freeze or recover affected assets. Bitget excludes actions carried out under court orders, law-enforcement requests, or other legal processes, and retains discretion over eligibility and payment.
US retail investors’ bottom-fishing in semiconductor leveraged ETFs takes a hit, with SOXL plunging 20.5% in a single day.
FactSet data shows that Direxion Daily Semiconductor Bull 3X Shares (SOXL) drew $6.1 billion in inflows last week, a new single-week record. Investors were betting on a rebound in chip stocks, but SOXL still dropped 10.8% this week, marking its third straight weekly decline, with a cumulative fall of over 43% since October. Inflows continued through Thursday, but SOXL plunged 20.5% that day, its largest single-day drop since June 23. By comparison, non-leveraged iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX) fell 6.8% on the same day, with a cumulative decline of around 15.9% since October. SOXL uses derivatives to track three times the daily performance of the semiconductor index, amplifying both gains and downside risks. The semiconductor sector is under pressure mainly due to market skepticism about the return on investment in AI infrastructure. Investors are reassessing whether tech giants’ aggressive spending can meet earnings expectations. Earlier, AI chip demand lifted semiconductor stocks, with SOXX’s year-to-date gain once nearing 59%, but recent sell-offs have tested its rally. Mike Reynolds, vice president of investment strategy at Glenmede, noted that semiconductors are highly sensitive to AI infrastructure development, and AI-related trades are currently facing some doubt. He added that after strong stock rallies and valuation expansions, investors’ re-examination of the AI theme’s potential returns is a healthy market move. Meanwhile, all three major U.S. stock indexes closed lower on Friday, with the S&P 500 Information Technology sector falling for the third consecutive week, its longest weekly losing streak since March.
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Initia discloses details of the MoveVM vulnerability attack, suffering losses of approximately $2.7 million, while the INIT token supply remains unaffected.
Initia disclosed that at 22:59 Beijing time on October 23, attackers exploited a MoveVM script cache vulnerability to bypass security checks, forging states to add unsupported WETH, iUSD, and USDC balances to their accounts without altering the total supply of the respective tokens. The native INIT token was not minted, and its total supply remained unaffected. Before the network was shut down, the attacker transferred 105 WETH and approximately 1.4 million AUSD0 via LayerZero, and around 1.08 million USDC via Noble and CCTP, with total assets valued at roughly $2.7 million. These assets have been converted into 1135.52 ETH. Initia's L1 and Rollups remain suspended. The team is fixing the vulnerability, with repairs and audits expected to be completed within days, and is working with security partners to recover the stolen assets. The official added that a full incident analysis report will be released later, and reminded users to beware of unofficial links, messages, and statements.
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Analyst: Bitcoin has seen notable pullbacks in every prior U.S. midterm election cycle, and its key support level of $73,000 requires close attention.
Crypto analyst Ali Charts wrote in a post that as the November 3 US midterm elections approach, investors may overlook the recurring Bitcoin pullbacks seen in previous election cycles. He believes this election could again bring significant volatility, with downside risks worth noting, and his key support level to watch is $73,000. According to his statistics, Bitcoin saw pullbacks of 72%, 65%, 52%, and 27% during the US midterm election cycles in 2010, 2014, 2018, and 2022 respectively. However, he emphasized that correlation does not equal causation; the elections themselves may not be the cause of the drops, and these pullbacks are also influenced by Bitcoin’s overall market cycle, liquidity conditions, and investor sentiment.
Q4 returns show a similar pattern: Bitcoin fell 16.70%, 42.16%, and 14.75% in Q4 of 2014, 2018, and 2022 respectively. The only exception was 2010, when it rose 391%—though Bitcoin was still in its early stages back then. As a result, three of the past four midterm election years saw negative Q4 returns.
Regarding future price action, Ali Charts noted that the $73,000 level is near the average acquisition cost of Bitcoin’s current short-term holders, making it a key area to monitor the positioning of recent investors. He pointed out that in an established bull market, Bitcoin often finds support near the short-term holder average cost after a significant pullback. He believes that if selling pressure accelerates after the November 3 elections, pushing Bitcoin back toward $73,000, this zone will be a critical level to test whether buyers are still willing to uphold the overall bullish trend. If prices rebound sustainably from this area, it will reinforce the bullish thesis. For trading, he will wait for signs of selling pressure drying up and demand reemerging before considering opening long positions.
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SpaceX’s $40 billion off-balance-sheet debt financing is facing pressure on pricing negotiations amid turmoil in the AI market.
According to Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter, SpaceX is negotiating a $40 billion off-balance-sheet debt financing plan, which would use a special purpose vehicle (SPV) to purchase Nvidia chips to support its AI business expansion. The structure is designed to keep the related liabilities off SpaceX’s balance sheet, preserving its investment-grade credit rating. However, recent turmoil in the AI sector has pushed up industry borrowing costs, complicating pricing negotiations. Banks led by Goldman Sachs are discussing the plan with investors led by Apollo; Apollo-backed Atlas SP would manage the entity, with Pimco also considering participation.
Previously, yields on some subordinated debt were discussed in the mid-8% to 9% range, but recent volatility has prompted investors to reevaluate pricing, and the two sides remain in talks. SpaceX’s financial filings this week also revealed that last year, xAI had attempted to raise up to $20 billion in off-balance-sheet debt via a sale-leaseback arrangement with Valor Equity Partners. Auditors classified the deal as a “failed sale-leaseback arrangement”, leading SpaceX to eventually record roughly $13 billion of the sum as its own debt. The proposed structure aims to avoid a repeat of that outcome.
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South Korean stock market's retail war chest shrank by 36.5%; retail investors continued net buying, but capital replenishment has slowed.
Data from Korea Financial Investment Association shows that as of October 22, investor deposits at South Korean securities firms fell to 88.68 trillion won, a drop of around 51 trillion won from the all-time high of 139.69 trillion won recorded on June 4, representing a 36.5% decline and returning to levels seen at the start of the year. The balance dipped below 90 trillion won on October 21, marking the first such drop in nearly nine months.
Investor deposits refer to funds held in securities firm accounts that have not yet been used to purchase assets such as stocks, and are typically viewed as potential buying power. The decline in the balance can stem from either stock purchases or fund withdrawals, so the full drop cannot be equated to capital exiting the stock market.
Retail investors continue to make net purchases. Between June 4 and October 23, individual investors bought a net 44.17 trillion won in the KOSPI market and 3.15 trillion won in the KOSDAQ market, while net purchases of ETFs over the same period reached 28.25 trillion won. The report notes that unlike the first half of the year, where new capital inflows exceeded stock purchases, the pace of capital replenishment in the second half has lagged behind outflows, leading to the continuous decline in deposit balances.
The KOSPI index closed at 5550.30 points on October 23, having fallen nearly 20% over the past month. A securities industry official said the recent decline is indeed excessive relative to earnings fundamentals, but the AI sector, which previously drove gains, still faces credit risk concerns, making it too early to expect a sustained rebound.
3 minutes ago
Renowned Trader: Bitcoin Should Add Positions Instead of Panicking When It Hits $80,000 'Buy Zone'
Renowned crypto trader Doctor Profit stated in a post that every time Bitcoin hits its "buy zone", it is an opportune moment to add to existing long positions, and he is currently executing this strategy. His accompanying chart labels the area near $80,000 as the "buy zone", emphasizing: "This zone is for buying, not panicking."
Crypto analyst Darkfost noted in a post that spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded net inflows of 5,183 BTC this week. While the inflow volume remains relatively modest, it has turned the 2026 cumulative fund flow of these ETFs positive from negative. As of now, year-to-date net inflows for spot Bitcoin ETFs stand at 10,784 BTC, after being in net outflow for most of the earlier period.
NFT sales climbed 66.58% to $76.56 million over the seven days to Oct. 24, as Bitcoin led blockchain volume and the $X@AGI BRC-20 NFTs collection recorded more than $25 million in sales.
Summary
$76.56 million in weekly NFT sales marked a 66.58% increase over the preceding seven days.
Buyer addresses increased 46.38% to 156,715, while transactions rose 35.05% to 764,169.
Ethereum ranked second with $24.64 million in sales, up 32.59% over the comparison period.
Bitcoin sales jumped 268.06% to $31.07 million, accounting for roughly 41% of weekly volume.
$X@AGI led collections with $25.09 million across three transactions, three buyers and three sellers.
According to data from CryptoSlam, NFT seller addresses increased 53.09% to 135,930 during the seven-day period. Both sides of the market expanded alongside transaction activity, although the dollar value of sales grew faster than the number of transactions.
The dashboard recorded 764,169 transactions, compared with approximately 565,849 in the preceding period. Its percentage comparison implies previous seven-day sales of about $45.96 million, putting the latest increase at roughly $30.60 million.
Separately, CoinGecko listed Bitcoin near $80,549 and Ethereum around $2,364 during an Oct. 24 check. The broader cryptocurrency market capitalization stood at approximately $2.77 trillion. Those spot-market readings provide context alongside the NFT figures, which cover a rolling seven-day period.
Bitcoin leads NFT sales with $31.07 million
Bitcoin generated $31,071,305 in NFT sales, rising 268.06% over the previous seven days. Buyer addresses increased 86.79% to 8,581, while CryptoSlam separately recorded $105,237 in wash-trading volume.
Bitcoin leads weekly NFT sales with $31.07 million, ahead of Ethereum’s $24.64 million | Source: CryptoSlam
The network accounted for approximately 40.6% of global NFT sales. Its lead over Ethereum reached about $6.43 million, with the two chains together representing nearly 73% of the weekly total.
Ethereum followed with $24,641,611, up 32.59%. Its buyer count increased 67.63% to 25,749, while separately tracked wash trading fell 77.71% to $365,532.
Bitcoin’s first-place finish followed its third-place blockchain ranking in the Oct. 17 roundup, when Ethereum led sales. That earlier snapshot recorded Bitcoin volume of $8.25 million.
Polygon ranked third in the latest dashboard with $8,532,290, an increase of 2.82%. Buyer addresses rose 42.15% to 38,971. Its separately reported wash volume reached $19,395,535, exceeding the network’s sales figure.
BNB Chain placed fourth with $3,352,625, down 18.96%, even as buyer addresses increased 144.37% to 11,869. Wash trading totaled approximately $50.
Immutable took fifth place with $2,298,908, a decline of 16.67%. Buyer addresses climbed 49.03% to 4,134.
Arbitrum ranked sixth with $2,001,820, up 1,109.53%, while buyers increased 56.56% to 1,719. Base followed at $1,948,859, up 30.19%, ahead of Solana’s $1,399,301, which rose 43.17%.
$X@AGI tops weekly NFT collection sales with $25.09 million
Bitcoin’s $X@AGI BRC-20 NFTs led the collection rankings with $25,091,343. CryptoSlam recorded three transactions involving three buyer addresses and three seller addresses.
$X@AGI tops weekly NFT collection sales with $25.09 million across three transactions | Source: CryptoSlam
The collection represented approximately 32.8% of global NFT sales and 80.8% of Bitcoin’s weekly volume. Its sales exceeded the combined total of the next three collections in the rankings.
Courtyard ranked second with $7,772,464 on Polygon, up 2.83%. The collection recorded 141,478 transactions, an 8.44% increase. Buyer addresses fell 3.35% to 18,816, while sellers declined 4.36% to 15,154.
Courtyard’s transaction count was substantially higher than those of the other leading collections. It accounted for roughly 18.5% of all NFT transactions recorded globally during the period.
Ethereum’s Slipstream V3 Deposit placed third with $7,575,732 across 926 transactions. Activity involved 22 buyers and 24 sellers.
Bored Ape Yacht Club followed in fourth with $3,558,183, rising 192.02%. CryptoSlam listed 94 transactions, 43 buyers and 42 sellers. Buyer addresses declined 10.42%, while sellers fell 20.75%.
A separate Slipstream V3 Deposit collection on Arbitrum ranked fifth with $1,891,201. It recorded 1,199 transactions involving 10 buyers and 10 sellers.
Another Bitcoin BRC-20 collection, displayed with an unreadable ticker, placed sixth at $1,865,924, up 131.03%. Its transactions increased 85.92% to 4,384, while buyers rose 22.89% to 2,276.
CryptoPunks ranked seventh with $1,638,493, up 22.55%, across 13 transactions. Buyer addresses fell 15.38% to 11, while seller addresses declined 7.14% to 13.
Credits followed with $1,468,717, an increase of 64.32%, across 22,142 transactions.
Bitcoin dominates the largest individual NFT sales
Four $X@AGI BRC-20 entries occupied the five largest individual-sale positions in CryptoSlam’s Oct. 24 listing. Bored Ape Yacht Club supplied the only Ethereum entry.
$X@AGI accounts for four of the five largest NFT sales, led by a $14.63 million transaction | Source: CryptoSlam
The largest recorded transaction fetched $14.63 million, followed by another Bitcoin sale worth $9.57 million. Both were listed as occurring approximately three days before the capture.
The five highest-value sales appeared in descending order as follows:
$X@AGI BRC-20 NFT #de71246799c669c093b194016766ec215… sold for $14,627,594.32, settled in 175.2058 BTC on Bitcoin, approximately three days earlier.
$X@AGI BRC-20 NFT #ff947db26a07d99604b878785249b4714… sold for $9,570,442.82, settled in 113.0014 BTC on Bitcoin, approximately three days earlier.
Bored Ape Yacht Club #9500 sold for $2,404,908.50, settled in 1,000.0001 ETH on Ethereum, approximately 18 hours earlier.
$X@AGI BRC-20 NFT #78407b6c3a80d7316b91bb2c87986aa9ae… sold for $1,009,840.51, settled in 12.357 BTC on Bitcoin, approximately two days earlier.
$X@AGI BRC-20 NFT #42000f24e9eb6f4087b3a2d62e8e27ead… sold for $893,305.48, settled in 10.7184 BTC on Bitcoin, approximately three days earlier.
Crypto analyst Ali Charts wrote in a post that as the November 3 US midterm elections approach, investors may overlook the recurring Bitcoin pullbacks seen in previous election cycles. He believes this election could again bring significant volatility, with downside risks worth noting, and his key support level to watch is $73,000. According to his statistics, Bitcoin saw pullbacks of 72%, 65%, 52%, and 27% during the US midterm election cycles in 2010, 2014, 2018, and 2022 respectively. However, he emphasized that correlation does not equal causation; the elections themselves may not be the cause of the drops, and these pullbacks are also influenced by Bitcoin’s overall market cycle, liquidity conditions, and investor sentiment. Q4 returns show a similar pattern: Bitcoin fell 16.70%, 42.16%, and 14.75% in Q4 of 2014, 2018, and 2022 respectively. The only exception was 2010, when it rose 391%—though Bitcoin was still in its early stages back then. As a result, three of the past four midterm election years saw negative Q4 returns. Regarding future price action, Ali Charts noted that the $73,000 level is near the average acquisition cost of Bitcoin’s current short-term holders, making it a key area to monitor the positioning of recent investors. He pointed out that in an established bull market, Bitcoin often finds support near the short-term holder average cost after a significant pullback. He believes that if selling pressure accelerates after the November 3 elections, pushing Bitcoin back toward $73,000, this zone will be a critical level to test whether buyers are still willing to uphold the overall bullish trend. If prices rebound sustainably from this area, it will reinforce the bullish thesis. For trading, he will wait for signs of selling pressure drying up and demand reemerging before considering opening long positions.
US retail investors’ bottom-fishing in semiconductor leveraged ETFs takes a hit, with SOXL plunging 20.5% in a single day.
FactSet data shows that Direxion Daily Semiconductor Bull 3X Shares (SOXL) drew $6.1 billion in inflows last week, a new single-week record. Investors were betting on a rebound in chip stocks, but SOXL still dropped 10.8% this week, marking its third straight weekly decline, with a cumulative fall of over 43% since October. Inflows continued through Thursday, but SOXL plunged 20.5% that day, its largest single-day drop since June 23. By comparison, non-leveraged iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX) fell 6.8% on the same day, with a cumulative decline of around 15.9% since October. SOXL uses derivatives to track three times the daily performance of the semiconductor index, amplifying both gains and downside risks. The semiconductor sector is under pressure mainly due to market skepticism about the return on investment in AI infrastructure. Investors are reassessing whether tech giants’ aggressive spending can meet earnings expectations. Earlier, AI chip demand lifted semiconductor stocks, with SOXX’s year-to-date gain once nearing 59%, but recent sell-offs have tested its rally. Mike Reynolds, vice president of investment strategy at Glenmede, noted that semiconductors are highly sensitive to AI infrastructure development, and AI-related trades are currently facing some doubt. He added that after strong stock rallies and valuation expansions, investors’ re-examination of the AI theme’s potential returns is a healthy market move. Meanwhile, all three major U.S. stock indexes closed lower on Friday, with the S&P 500 Information Technology sector falling for the third consecutive week, its longest weekly losing streak since March.
3 minutes ago
Initia discloses details of the MoveVM vulnerability attack, suffering losses of approximately $2.7 million, while the INIT token supply remains unaffected.
Initia disclosed that at 22:59 Beijing time on October 23, attackers exploited a MoveVM script cache vulnerability to bypass security checks, forging states to add unsupported WETH, iUSD, and USDC balances to their accounts without altering the total supply of the respective tokens. The native INIT token was not minted, and its total supply remained unaffected. Before the network was shut down, the attacker transferred 105 WETH and approximately 1.4 million AUSD0 via LayerZero, and around 1.08 million USDC via Noble and CCTP, with total assets valued at roughly $2.7 million. These assets have been converted into 1135.52 ETH. Initia's L1 and Rollups remain suspended. The team is fixing the vulnerability, with repairs and audits expected to be completed within days, and is working with security partners to recover the stolen assets. The official added that a full incident analysis report will be released later, and reminded users to beware of unofficial links, messages, and statements.
3 minutes ago
Analyst: Bitcoin has seen notable pullbacks in every prior U.S. midterm election cycle, and its key support level of $73,000 requires close attention.
Crypto analyst Ali Charts wrote in a post that as the November 3 US midterm elections approach, investors may overlook the recurring Bitcoin pullbacks seen in previous election cycles. He believes this election could again bring significant volatility, with downside risks worth noting, and his key support level to watch is $73,000. According to his statistics, Bitcoin saw pullbacks of 72%, 65%, 52%, and 27% during the US midterm election cycles in 2010, 2014, 2018, and 2022 respectively. However, he emphasized that correlation does not equal causation; the elections themselves may not be the cause of the drops, and these pullbacks are also influenced by Bitcoin’s overall market cycle, liquidity conditions, and investor sentiment. Q4 returns show a similar pattern: Bitcoin fell 16.70%, 42.16%, and 14.75% in Q4 of 2014, 2018, and 2022 respectively. The only exception was 2010, when it rose 391%—though Bitcoin was still in its early stages back then. As a result, three of the past four midterm election years saw negative Q4 returns. Regarding future price action, Ali Charts noted that the $73,000 level is near the average acquisition cost of Bitcoin’s current short-term holders, making it a key area to monitor the positioning of recent investors. He pointed out that in an established bull market, Bitcoin often finds support near the short-term holder average cost after a significant pullback. He believes that if selling pressure accelerates after the November 3 elections, pushing Bitcoin back toward $73,000, this zone will be a critical level to test whether buyers are still willing to uphold the overall bullish trend. If prices rebound sustainably from this area, it will reinforce the bullish thesis. For trading, he will wait for signs of selling pressure drying up and demand reemerging before considering opening long positions.
3 minutes ago
SpaceX’s $40 billion off-balance-sheet debt financing is facing pressure on pricing negotiations amid turmoil in the AI market.
According to Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter, SpaceX is negotiating a $40 billion off-balance-sheet debt financing plan, which would use a special purpose vehicle (SPV) to purchase Nvidia chips to support its AI business expansion. The structure is designed to keep the related liabilities off SpaceX’s balance sheet, preserving its investment-grade credit rating. However, recent turmoil in the AI sector has pushed up industry borrowing costs, complicating pricing negotiations. Banks led by Goldman Sachs are discussing the plan with investors led by Apollo; Apollo-backed Atlas SP would manage the entity, with Pimco also considering participation. Previously, yields on some subordinated debt were discussed in the mid-8% to 9% range, but recent volatility has prompted investors to reevaluate pricing, and the two sides remain in talks. SpaceX’s financial filings this week also revealed that last year, xAI had attempted to raise up to $20 billion in off-balance-sheet debt via a sale-leaseback arrangement with Valor Equity Partners. Auditors classified the deal as a “failed sale-leaseback arrangement”, leading SpaceX to eventually record roughly $13 billion of the sum as its own debt. The proposed structure aims to avoid a repeat of that outcome.
3 minutes ago
South Korean stock market's retail war chest shrank by 36.5%; retail investors continued net buying, but capital replenishment has slowed.
Data from Korea Financial Investment Association shows that as of October 22, investor deposits at South Korean securities firms fell to 88.68 trillion won, a drop of around 51 trillion won from the all-time high of 139.69 trillion won recorded on June 4, representing a 36.5% decline and returning to levels seen at the start of the year. The balance dipped below 90 trillion won on October 21, marking the first such drop in nearly nine months. Investor deposits refer to funds held in securities firm accounts that have not yet been used to purchase assets such as stocks, and are typically viewed as potential buying power. The decline in the balance can stem from either stock purchases or fund withdrawals, so the full drop cannot be equated to capital exiting the stock market. Retail investors continue to make net purchases. Between June 4 and October 23, individual investors bought a net 44.17 trillion won in the KOSPI market and 3.15 trillion won in the KOSDAQ market, while net purchases of ETFs over the same period reached 28.25 trillion won. The report notes that unlike the first half of the year, where new capital inflows exceeded stock purchases, the pace of capital replenishment in the second half has lagged behind outflows, leading to the continuous decline in deposit balances. The KOSPI index closed at 5550.30 points on October 23, having fallen nearly 20% over the past month. A securities industry official said the recent decline is indeed excessive relative to earnings fundamentals, but the AI sector, which previously drove gains, still faces credit risk concerns, making it too early to expect a sustained rebound.
3 minutes ago
AI computing power expansion in the Gulf region faces communication risks due to Iran's threats to attack undersea fiber-optic cables.
Two senior Iranian security officials have revealed that Iran has drawn up plans to strike submarine communications cables in the Gulf if the U.S. and Israel launch another attack; one official added that they will also block repairs to extend the communication outage. Officials from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) had previously threatened to target seven major undersea internet cables beneath the Strait of Hormuz if Iran’s infrastructure is attacked. These threats have introduced new communication risks to cloud computing and AI infrastructure in the Gulf region. Reuters reported that past attacks by Iran hit two Amazon Web Services (AWS) facilities in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and damaged infrastructure near an AWS facility in Bahrain. Analysts noted that simultaneous damage to multiple cables could disrupt financial transactions, e-commerce, and cloud services, though the actual impact depends on traffic rerouting capabilities and backup line capacity. International bandwidth passing through the Strait of Hormuz accounts for less than 1% of the global total, so the direct impact on global communications may be limited. Microsoft plans to invest over $10 billion in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Kuwait by 2030, and allocate more than $400 million to improve submarine and terrestrial network connections in the Middle East, to enhance the resilience of its digital infrastructure.
Spot XRP ETFs have returned to net inflows this week after a first weekly outflow in about three months, with assets under management near $1.5 billion.
U.S. spot @Ripple $XRP exchange-traded funds are back in positive territory. The products are up roughly $4.25 million in net flows so far this week, following their first weekly net outflow in around three months.
Inflows resume after a short breakLast week's reversal was modest. TokenPost reported that U.S. spot XRP ETFs recorded about $1.84 million in net outflows during the October 12 to 16 trading week, ending 13 consecutive weeks of net inflows. The preceding week had brought in $11.31 million, according to the same report.
The outflow was concentrated in a single product. Canary Capital's XRPC fund accounted for a $2.47 million outflow on October 16, per TokenPost. Crypto Briefing noted that this was the first negative week since mid-July.
Flows have since turned. Data from SoSoValue cited by TokenPost show XRP spot ETFs attracted $3.55 million on October 22, a second consecutive day of net inflows, with Franklin Templeton's XRPZ accounting for all of it. FXStreet separately reported about $709,000 in inflows on Wednesday after two days of muted activity.
Assets near $1.5 billion lead the altcoin ETF fieldThe funds remain among the largest in the spot altcoin ETF category. SoSoValue data cited by U.Today put net assets at $1.49 billion, with cumulative historical inflows above $1.8 billion. Crypto Briefing said total net assets sit between roughly $1.47 billion and $1.57 billion depending on the reporting date, and that the gap versus cumulative inflows reflects movements in the price of the underlying XRP.
That price backdrop has been weaker. FXStreet noted that XRP has been trading near the $1.30 level, with technical indicators pointing to a fragile structure. Analysts caution that weekly flow data does not explain why investors move money, and TokenPost stressed that one negative week does not establish a sustained change in demand.
For now, the return to inflows suggests the October outflow was a brief pause rather than a reversal of demand. Whether the trend holds will depend on both fund flows and the direction of XRP's price in the coming weeks.
SourcesTokenPost: XRP Exchange Deposits Reach Seven-Month High as ETF Streak Ends
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed by our writers are their own and do not represent the views of U.Today. The financial and market information provided on U.Today is intended for informational purposes only. U.Today is not liable for any financial losses incurred while trading cryptocurrencies. Conduct your own research by contacting financial experts before making any investment decisions. We believe that all content is accurate as of the date of publication, but certain offers mentioned may no longer be available.
The token's return to the psychological $2 mark is dragging on. The technical picture and the harsh math of coin supply point to a long sideways trend. The current macroeconomic model is squeezing the asset's potential, pushing the timeline for a real assault on key levels to the 2028 horizon.
According to TradingView data, the weekly XRP/USD chart has entered a phase of extreme Bollinger Band compression. Quotes have frozen at $1.3110, running into a dense resistance block in the $1.37–$1.40 range.
The indicator's middle line (20-week SMA) at $1.2514 is currently holding a local floor, while the upper band runs at $1.5997.
HOT Stories
Weekly XRP/USD price chart showing Bollinger Bands squeeze, Source: TradingView
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The current chart structure fully duplicates the prolonged accumulation cycle of 2022–2024. Prediction platforms, including Polymarket, estimate the chances of a breakout to $2 this month at only 10%. The indicator's math warns that in order to fully digest the current supply, the market will need a prolonged consolidation phase.
Why everything is great for Ripple, but not for XRPThe sleepy price chart sharply diverges from the powerful development of the project's distributed infrastructure — both Ripple and XRP Ledger. By October 2026, the network had reached peak fundamental form in three areas: the legal status of a digital commodity in the U.S. fully removed regulatory risks for banks; the integration of Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin into payment corridors organically accelerated native gas burn volumes; and the XLS-66 amendment and built-in AMM turned the blockchain into a full-fledged DeFi ecosystem.
The main brake on the spot price remains the escrow account mechanism. On the first day of every month, Ripple unlocks 1 billion tokens. About 80% of this volume is dutifully returned to lockup, but the remaining 200–300 million coins go to institutional partners every month via over-the-counter (OTC) deals.
This steady inflow of supply against the backdrop of tight Fed rates deprives the retail market of the strength for a quick takeoff.
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Only four factors are capable of pulling the price off its two-year brake and breaking this suspended animation:
Institutional shortage on the OTC market: If bank demand exceeds the scheduled escrow volumes, buyers will be forced to enter open exchanges, which will instantly break through the upper Bollinger Band.Capitulation of the U.S. Fed: A cut in interest rates will trigger a flow of capital from government bonds back into crypto assets with clear legal status, where this token holds a leading position.Explosive launch of lending pools in DeFi: The full deployment of the XLS-66 amendment will force large funds to lock billions of coins in smart contracts for the sake of yield, which will sharply reduce their free circulation.Large-scale integration of RLUSD by banks: If the new stablecoin becomes a basic tool for transnational corridors, fee burn volumes will grow hundreds of times, creating deflationary pressure.The implementation of any of these scenarios could forcibly interrupt the prolonged flat. But until macroeconomic triggers or a shortage on the OTC market outweigh the scheduled pressure of the escrow accounts, the bulls will have to adapt their strategies to the conditions of a long wait.
Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.
Disclosure. PANews may publish sponsored content, partner content, advertisements, affiliate links, event promotions, and market commentary involving Web3 projects, service providers, or financial products. PANews personnel, contributors, or affiliates may hold digital assets or other interests related to covered topics. See our Terms of Service.
US retail investors’ bottom-fishing in semiconductor leveraged ETFs takes a hit, with SOXL plunging 20.5% in a single day.
FactSet data shows that Direxion Daily Semiconductor Bull 3X Shares (SOXL) drew $6.1 billion in inflows last week, a new single-week record. Investors were betting on a rebound in chip stocks, but SOXL still dropped 10.8% this week, marking its third straight weekly decline, with a cumulative fall of over 43% since October. Inflows continued through Thursday, but SOXL plunged 20.5% that day, its largest single-day drop since June 23. By comparison, non-leveraged iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX) fell 6.8% on the same day, with a cumulative decline of around 15.9% since October. SOXL uses derivatives to track three times the daily performance of the semiconductor index, amplifying both gains and downside risks. The semiconductor sector is under pressure mainly due to market skepticism about the return on investment in AI infrastructure. Investors are reassessing whether tech giants’ aggressive spending can meet earnings expectations. Earlier, AI chip demand lifted semiconductor stocks, with SOXX’s year-to-date gain once nearing 59%, but recent sell-offs have tested its rally. Mike Reynolds, vice president of investment strategy at Glenmede, noted that semiconductors are highly sensitive to AI infrastructure development, and AI-related trades are currently facing some doubt. He added that after strong stock rallies and valuation expansions, investors’ re-examination of the AI theme’s potential returns is a healthy market move. Meanwhile, all three major U.S. stock indexes closed lower on Friday, with the S&P 500 Information Technology sector falling for the third consecutive week, its longest weekly losing streak since March.
3 minutes ago
Initia discloses details of the MoveVM vulnerability attack, suffering losses of approximately $2.7 million, while the INIT token supply remains unaffected.
Initia disclosed that at 22:59 Beijing time on October 23, attackers exploited a MoveVM script cache vulnerability to bypass security checks, forging states to add unsupported WETH, iUSD, and USDC balances to their accounts without altering the total supply of the respective tokens. The native INIT token was not minted, and its total supply remained unaffected. Before the network was shut down, the attacker transferred 105 WETH and approximately 1.4 million AUSD0 via LayerZero, and around 1.08 million USDC via Noble and CCTP, with total assets valued at roughly $2.7 million. These assets have been converted into 1135.52 ETH. Initia's L1 and Rollups remain suspended. The team is fixing the vulnerability, with repairs and audits expected to be completed within days, and is working with security partners to recover the stolen assets. The official added that a full incident analysis report will be released later, and reminded users to beware of unofficial links, messages, and statements.
3 minutes ago
Analyst: Bitcoin has seen notable pullbacks in every prior U.S. midterm election cycle, and its key support level of $73,000 requires close attention.
Crypto analyst Ali Charts wrote in a post that as the November 3 US midterm elections approach, investors may overlook the recurring Bitcoin pullbacks seen in previous election cycles. He believes this election could again bring significant volatility, with downside risks worth noting, and his key support level to watch is $73,000. According to his statistics, Bitcoin saw pullbacks of 72%, 65%, 52%, and 27% during the US midterm election cycles in 2010, 2014, 2018, and 2022 respectively. However, he emphasized that correlation does not equal causation; the elections themselves may not be the cause of the drops, and these pullbacks are also influenced by Bitcoin’s overall market cycle, liquidity conditions, and investor sentiment. Q4 returns show a similar pattern: Bitcoin fell 16.70%, 42.16%, and 14.75% in Q4 of 2014, 2018, and 2022 respectively. The only exception was 2010, when it rose 391%—though Bitcoin was still in its early stages back then. As a result, three of the past four midterm election years saw negative Q4 returns. Regarding future price action, Ali Charts noted that the $73,000 level is near the average acquisition cost of Bitcoin’s current short-term holders, making it a key area to monitor the positioning of recent investors. He pointed out that in an established bull market, Bitcoin often finds support near the short-term holder average cost after a significant pullback. He believes that if selling pressure accelerates after the November 3 elections, pushing Bitcoin back toward $73,000, this zone will be a critical level to test whether buyers are still willing to uphold the overall bullish trend. If prices rebound sustainably from this area, it will reinforce the bullish thesis. For trading, he will wait for signs of selling pressure drying up and demand reemerging before considering opening long positions.
3 minutes ago
SpaceX’s $40 billion off-balance-sheet debt financing is facing pressure on pricing negotiations amid turmoil in the AI market.
According to Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter, SpaceX is negotiating a $40 billion off-balance-sheet debt financing plan, which would use a special purpose vehicle (SPV) to purchase Nvidia chips to support its AI business expansion. The structure is designed to keep the related liabilities off SpaceX’s balance sheet, preserving its investment-grade credit rating. However, recent turmoil in the AI sector has pushed up industry borrowing costs, complicating pricing negotiations. Banks led by Goldman Sachs are discussing the plan with investors led by Apollo; Apollo-backed Atlas SP would manage the entity, with Pimco also considering participation. Previously, yields on some subordinated debt were discussed in the mid-8% to 9% range, but recent volatility has prompted investors to reevaluate pricing, and the two sides remain in talks. SpaceX’s financial filings this week also revealed that last year, xAI had attempted to raise up to $20 billion in off-balance-sheet debt via a sale-leaseback arrangement with Valor Equity Partners. Auditors classified the deal as a “failed sale-leaseback arrangement”, leading SpaceX to eventually record roughly $13 billion of the sum as its own debt. The proposed structure aims to avoid a repeat of that outcome.
3 minutes ago
South Korean stock market's retail war chest shrank by 36.5%; retail investors continued net buying, but capital replenishment has slowed.
Data from Korea Financial Investment Association shows that as of October 22, investor deposits at South Korean securities firms fell to 88.68 trillion won, a drop of around 51 trillion won from the all-time high of 139.69 trillion won recorded on June 4, representing a 36.5% decline and returning to levels seen at the start of the year. The balance dipped below 90 trillion won on October 21, marking the first such drop in nearly nine months. Investor deposits refer to funds held in securities firm accounts that have not yet been used to purchase assets such as stocks, and are typically viewed as potential buying power. The decline in the balance can stem from either stock purchases or fund withdrawals, so the full drop cannot be equated to capital exiting the stock market. Retail investors continue to make net purchases. Between June 4 and October 23, individual investors bought a net 44.17 trillion won in the KOSPI market and 3.15 trillion won in the KOSDAQ market, while net purchases of ETFs over the same period reached 28.25 trillion won. The report notes that unlike the first half of the year, where new capital inflows exceeded stock purchases, the pace of capital replenishment in the second half has lagged behind outflows, leading to the continuous decline in deposit balances. The KOSPI index closed at 5550.30 points on October 23, having fallen nearly 20% over the past month. A securities industry official said the recent decline is indeed excessive relative to earnings fundamentals, but the AI sector, which previously drove gains, still faces credit risk concerns, making it too early to expect a sustained rebound.
3 minutes ago
Renowned Trader: Bitcoin Should Add Positions Instead of Panicking When It Hits $80,000 'Buy Zone'
Renowned crypto trader Doctor Profit stated in a post that every time Bitcoin hits its "buy zone", it is an opportune moment to add to existing long positions, and he is currently executing this strategy. His accompanying chart labels the area near $80,000 as the "buy zone", emphasizing: "This zone is for buying, not panicking."
XRP non-empty wallets on the XRP Ledger have reached a new all-time high of 8.24 million, according to data published by Santiment Intelligence on October 22, 2026.
The milestone arrives as daily XRP non-empty wallets growth spiked to 4,772 new addresses in a single day, the fifth-largest daily surge recorded since March.
XRP was trading near $1.36 at the time of the report.
Record Wallet Count Reflects Sustained Adoption Despite Price Volatility The steady climb in XRP non-empty wallets has persisted through months of price turbulence. Santiment notes that fresh user participation is accelerating.
This suggests new entrants are actively joining the network rather than simply existing holders reshuffling funds.
The timing is notable. In September, the XRP Ledger recorded its largest single-day new-account print, 11,432 new accounts on September 24, roughly 320% above the daily average.
The October spike of 4,772 wallets is smaller but still signals continued momentum.
Holder distribution data adds further context. The XRP rich list for September 2026 showed concentration among large holders, yet the widening base of non-empty wallets points to broader retail participation alongside institutional accumulation.
Institutional interest has been a structural driver. The Evernorth XRP treasury, which secured 94% shareholder approval for a 473 million XRP acquisition plan, reflects the scale of organised demand entering the ledger.
The Evernorth-Ripple partnership with Kraken, Coinbase, and Bitgo underpins that treasury deployment.
XRP fell -2.83% over the last 24 hours to sit at $1.29, extending a week-long downward trend that has dragged the cryptocurrency down -1.18% over the past seven days.
Despite the recent slump, the digital asset maintains a massive $81.3 billion market capitalization, backed by a circulating supply of 63 billion tokens, while racking up over $1.21 billion in trading volume during this recent day of trading.
$1.40 Is the Key Level, Sustained Growth Above 4,000 Daily Wallets Could Confirm Bullish Signal Santiment laid out two clear scenarios for investors. On the upside, a sustained move above $1.40, while daily XRP non-empty wallets creation stays near or above 4,000, would make a return toward $1.50 “more than plausible.”
On the downside, losing $1.30 while new-wallet creation falls below roughly 3,000 would weaken the short-term adoption signal.
The bullish case is complicated by supply-side pressure. XRP exchange reserves recently hit 11.81 billion, near the 99th percentile of the past year, signalling elevated sell-side availability near current prices.
Sentiment has also been mixed. Santiment’s bullish-to-bearish ratio for XRP hit 0.67 earlier in October, its weakest reading since August 17. Recovering sentiment alongside sustained wallet growth would reinforce the path toward $1.40.
On-chain volume offers an additional signal. XRPL transactions recently hit 50 billion cumulative, underlining that the ledger’s activity base is expanding.
Meanwhile, U.S. spot XRP ETFs have attracted over $1.7 billion in cumulative inflows, with institutional custodians deepening their involvement, a trend highlighted in a joint Ripple-BCG report on financial institution custody.
Investors should note that wallet counts track addresses, not unique individuals. Exchanges, custodians, and active traders control multiple wallets.
The metric is most meaningful when read alongside price action, exchange flows, and ETF demand rather than in isolation.
XRP has also launched an official X account managed by Ripple and the XRP Ledger Foundation, adding a new layer of community infrastructure as the ledger continues to grow.
Jack Pouderoyen, Head of Digital Asset Strategy at SWIFT, shared insights on the evolution of the global financial system in a recent discussion with Finextra Research. He emphasized a shift towards 24/7 cross-border payments, programmable forms of digital cash, atomic settlement, and tokenized securities as core objectives for the industry.
SWIFT’s digital asset ecosystem and industry goalsSWIFT, the renowned global financial messaging network, is piloting a new ledger initiative that currently involves 17 banks across six continents, with over 40 institutions contributing to its development. Transactions on the platform span major currencies, including the US dollar, euro, British pound, Hong Kong dollar, and Singapore dollar.
Pouderoyen detailed the industry’s focus on enabling banks to efficiently move liquidity worldwide at any hour, particularly through tokenized deposit functionality. He noted a rising demand for a digital cash leg suitable for continuous, programmable settlement, which would streamline not only securities transactions but also payment versus payment (PvP) for FX deals.
Pouderoyen identified 24/7 payment capability as a critical component for banks looking to manage international liquidity and settlement outside of traditional operating hours. He underlined the importance of programmable money in unlocking atomic settlement efficiencies across both securities and foreign exchange arenas.
Ripple’s infrastructure and market parallelsCommentator X Finance Bull highlighted that Ripple’s XRP-centric infrastructure closely mirrors the developments outlined by SWIFT. Ripple, a San Francisco-based fintech company specializing in blockchain-based global payments, has implemented atomic settlement processes utilizing RLUSD for digital cash transactions. Recent collaborations involving Ondo, Kinexys (a J.P. Morgan solution), Mastercard, and Ripple resulted in a tokenized US Treasury redemption settled on the XRP Ledger (XRPL) in under five seconds.
A broad array of institutions—including Standard Chartered, DBS, Franklin Templeton, BNY, Aviva Investors, DriveWealth, CSD BR, BTG Pactual, and Meritz Securities—are actively developing tools around RLUSD, tokenized funds, and new digital settlement models.
Mini dictionary: RLUSD – A Ripple-issued stablecoin designed for fast, secure, and programmable digital transactions, often serving as a settlement asset on the XRP Ledger and in atomic settlement processes.
The FX dimension and XRP’s roleX Finance Bull pointed out that foreign exchange (FX) settlement is a pivotal opportunity. With global FX turnover estimated at $9.6 trillion daily and total gross settlement obligations exceeding $14 trillion per day, the demand for instant settlement solutions is significant. XRP’s architecture supports native cross-currency transactions and features auto-bridging, attributes that align with SWIFT’s described roadmap for digital settlement.
FeatureSWIFT (New Ledger)Ripple (XRP/RLUSD)24/7 cross-border paymentsIn piloting phase with banksOperationalProgrammable digital cashUnder developmentImplemented with RLUSDAtomic settlementHighlighted as targetLive on XRPLFX auto-bridgingDescribed as goalNative to XRPIndustry observations and future outlookPouderoyen’s interview did not reference XRP directly, but analysts like X Finance Bull see a notable overlap in technological objectives. He noted that Ripple’s long-standing efforts to position XRP for this type of financial world now reflect the priorities discussed by SWIFT.
X Finance Bull wrote, “They are describing the exact financial world Ripple has been preparing $XRP for, and I think that is massive.”
While the commentary does not amount to an official partnership or endorsement, it underscores a growing convergence in approach between traditional banking infrastructure and blockchain-based financial solutions. SWIFT and Ripple appear to be moving in parallel toward 24/7, programmable, and atomic settlement capabilities, even if their paths have not formally crossed.
Franklin Templeton has added roughly $150 million in sgBENJI shares to the XRP Ledger (XRPL). The move nearly quadrupled the asset manager’s tokenized fund position on the ledger overnight.
On-chain data shows two separate $75 million cash subscription receipts recorded on Wednesday.
The matching share issuances followed on Thursday. Each batch delivered just over 72.18 million sgBENJI shares at a price of $1.039 per share.
Before the inflow, Franklin held roughly 48 million shares on the XRPL. That figure has now climbed to nearly 193 million shares. At current pricing, the position is worth approximately $200 million.
One Wallet, Eight Signers, What the Structure Means
The entire sgBENJI balance on XRPL sits inside a single wallet. That wallet shares the same eight signing addresses as Franklin’s issuing account.
Any two of those eight addresses can jointly approve a transaction. Franklin retains the right to freeze balances or recover tokens if needed.
This design is typical of regulated tokenized fund structures. Issuers use multi-sig accounts to enforce compliance controls while keeping assets on a public ledger.
Still, concentrating the full position in one wallet raises operational questions, particularly around who the end investor is. Franklin has not clarified whether the wallet is an omnibus account holding multiple clients or a single large allocation.
The move extends a broader institutional push on XRPL. Ripple’s partnership with DBS and Franklin Templeton, announced in September 2025, set the stage for this: it enabled DBS Digital Exchange clients to swap between sgBENJI and Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin and explore using the fund tokens as collateral.
Franklin’s commitment to XRPL is not incidental. Franklin Templeton’s digital assets head has publicly backed XRP for its practical utility, citing throughput, cost, and reliability as reasons institutions are choosing the ledger over alternatives.
XRPL’s RWA Market Grows, Franklin Now Ranks Second
RWA.xyz now ranks Franklin Templeton second among tokenized asset issuers on XRPL. Ripple’s RLUSD leads with roughly $930 million.
Ondo Finance sits third at $185 million. Franklin’s sgBENJI position at ~$200 million slots in between.
This ranking shift matters in context. XRPL’s real-world asset market cap hit $2.25 billion earlier this year, rising 124% in Q1 2026 alone. Franklin’s fresh inflow adds weight to that trend.
The asset manager has also been laying regulatory groundwork in parallel. It secured SEC clearance for its funds to hold tokenized assets and met with the SEC’s Crypto Task Force on 1940 Act issues to clarify how tokenized funds interact with the Innovation Exemption.
Beyond regulation, Franklin has been expanding utility for its tokenized shares. Its partnership with Bybit lets eligible clients pledge sgBENJI shares as collateral to secure stablecoin credit lines while still earning fund yield.
It also tapped HashKey to bring the tokenized fund to Asia, reaching professional investors through HashKey Exchange’s Earn channel.
Ripple, for its part, has continued deepening infrastructure on the ledger. Its strategic investments in ZILO and Licuido expand regulated token issuance and collateral services, building exactly the rails that institutions like Franklin now use.
For those exploring where to access real-world assets on-chain, leading crypto exchanges now offer RWA trading options as the sector grows.
24 October 2026 | 11:10 Franklin Templeton issued $150 million in new fund shares on XRP Ledger on October 22, roughly double the fund’s September assets, and every share landed in one wallet.
Key Takeaways Two $75 million subscriptions issued on October 22 XRPL wallet now holds 192.7 million shares Fund reported $75.29 million net assets September 30 Wallet and issuer share eight authorized signers CoinDesk’s ledger review, published October 24, traced the issuance to two cash subscription receipts that Franklin’s issuing account wrote onto the ledger on October 21.
From 48 million shares to 192.7 million in two batches About 48 million sgBENJI shares sat on XRPL before the issuance. Two batches of roughly 72.18 million shares followed at 02:58 and 04:13 UTC, each matched to its subscription receipt and priced at $1.039.
Bithomp’s distribution data shows 192.7 million shares outstanding, all in one address, worth about $200.2 million at the transaction price. Two other addresses are authorized to hold the token and carry zero balances.
Against the fund as a whole, the new money is large. Franklin’s September 30 factsheet lists total net assets of $75.29 million across every network the fund uses, Stellar included.
How large is the wallet’s slice of the fund?
Fund net assets, September 30$75.29M
Subscriptions issued October 22+ $150M
Rough fund total≈ $225M
XRPL wallet value≈ $200M (about 89%)
The estimate assumes no other subscriptions or redemptions since September 30. Flows on other networks would not show on XRPL.
CoinDesk reported that Franklin now ranks second among XRPL tokenized-asset issuers on RWA.xyz, behind Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin at about $930 million and ahead of Ondo at $185 million. As with XRPL’s wider tokenized-asset totals, the ranking reflects recorded value, and in Franklin’s case a single wallet supplies all of it.
One set of keys on both sides of the issuance The funded wallet and Franklin’s issuing account list the same eight signing addresses, and any two of them can approve a transaction, according to CoinDesk. The keyholders who issue sgBENJI on XRPL can therefore also move the shares they issued.
Two arrangements fit that pattern. Franklin or its transfer agent could run the wallet for many clients and track each stake off the chain, a common setup among brokers and custodians. The wallet could also belong to one large investor whose account Franklin operates.
The fund’s register is designed in two layers. A Project Guardian industry report hosted by the Monetary Authority of Singapore describes sgBENJI tokens as evidence of fund shares, with shareholder identities kept in internal systems linked to the blockchain entries. Franklin also controls access to the token: holding sgBENJI on XRPL requires its approval, and the token’s settings let the issuer freeze balances and recover shares.
CoinDesk asked Franklin whether the wallet is an omnibus account, how many investors funded the subscriptions and whether they will receive shares in separate addresses. Franklin had not responded by Saturday morning in Asia.
The yield case and the DBS trading plan The shares belong to the Singapore-domiciled Franklin OnChain U.S. Dollar Short-Term Money Market Fund, which holds short-term dollar debt such as government paper, commercial paper and bank deposits. Returns build up in the share price. The factsheet shows a 3.57% one-year return after fees, a 0.20% expense ratio and a $1.04 net asset value for the A (acc) USD class, consistent with the October 22 price. The fund does not buy XRP.
Franklin, DBS and Ripple also set out a trading use for the shares. In a September 2025 agreement, DBS Digital Exchange said it would list sgBENJI alongside RLUSD so eligible clients could swap between the two around the clock. DBS added that it would explore letting clients pledge the shares as collateral, through repo deals with the bank or loans from third-party platforms.
The ledger data fits either a trading or a holding explanation. A venue offering fast swaps would need shares on hand, and a large block in a Franklin-administered wallet could serve that role. One or a few institutions could also have bought $150 million of a dollar money fund for its yield, with no plan to trade it. Because swaps on an exchange’s internal books need not appear as XRPL transfers, a wallet with no outgoing movement fits both readings.
Cash comes out on the fund’s schedule Route to cash Speed Limit Redeem with the fund Normally within seven business days; 4:30 p.m. Singapore cutoff Possible 10% daily cap per share class Swap on DBS Digital Exchange Minutes, around the clock, paid in RLUSD Eligible DBS clients only Sell to another investor As fast as the buyer settles Buyer needs a Franklin-approved wallet Borrow against shares Set by the lender DBS said it would explore this Under Franklin’s September 2026 Product Highlights Sheet, the seven-day window starts once a request is received and accepted, and requests that miss the cutoff generally roll to the next dealing day.
The daily cap matters because of how concentrated the XRPL position is. If the wallet’s shares sit in a class close to the fund’s total size, a full redemption would exceed one day’s limit many times over, and the fund could spread the payout across many dealing days. The cap is discretionary, and there is no sign it has been used.
Three disclosures that would fill the gaps The October 31 factsheet, due in November, should show whether fund assets rose by close to the full $150 million or whether redemptions elsewhere offset part of it. Any balance appearing in the two authorized but empty XRPL addresses would show shares moving to separate holders. DBS figures on sgBENJI swaps or collateral use would show whether the trading plan accounts for any of the $200 million. This article is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice. Tokenized funds carry investment risks and remain subject to eligibility, transfer and redemption requirements.
Author
Alex is Editor-in-Chief of Coindoo and co-founder of Millennial Media Group, with nearly a decade of experience covering financial markets - crypto first, then everything else. It started in 2016 with Bitcoin. Like most people at the time, he didn't fully understand it - so he kept digging. Blockchain, tokenomics, the projects, the cycles. That curiosity never stopped, and eventually pulled him into traditional markets too: equities, commodities, macro. Not because he left crypto behind, but because you can't properly understand one without the other. What drives him is straightforward: he wants to know why something is happening, not just that it's happening. Most market coverage stops at the headline - price up, price down, here's a chart. Alex finds that kind of reporting actively unhelpful. If you walk away from an article without understanding the mechanism behind the move, what did you actually learn? He holds a degree in Tourism from New Bulgarian University - not the most obvious path into financial markets, but markets have a way of pulling in people who are simply too curious to stay out. He has authored over 200 in-depth analyses and more than 10,000 articles across crypto and traditional finance. He still thinks every day in markets teaches him something new. That's probably why he hasn't stopped.
Ripple CTO Emeritus David Schwartz has elaborated on how XRP derives its value within the broader financial ecosystem, offering new insights amid continued debate among the XRP community regarding the asset’s utility and potential for price growth.
The core thesisDiscussions among XRP supporters recently centered on the network’s fee structure and deflationary design, with several community members questioning whether these factors directly impact XRP’s price. Schwartz responded by articulating his main argument in a detailed thread.
In his explanation, Schwartz stated that low fees and consistent network performance make the XRP Ledger an attractive venue for transferring and holding value. This utility, according to Schwartz, results in increased activity and value flow into the XRP Ledger. He argued that XRP is well-positioned to benefit from this growth, thanks to its unique properties compared to other assets available on the platform.
Low fees and reliable operation make the XRP Ledger a favorable environment for moving and holding value, which increases value flow into the ledger. XRP is able to capture part of that value because it offers advantages not found in other assets on the network.
Schwartz outlined a logical sequence: reduced transaction costs and operational reliability attract users, which, in turn, drives value onto the network. As XRP is the native asset, it is uniquely situated to absorb part of this value due to its role in network operations.
Why XRP specifically?Schwartz distinguished between the value inherent in the XRP Ledger as a network and the value of XRP as its native token. He emphasized that the ledger’s appeal drives activity, and XRP specifically captures demand due to intrinsic features that other assets on the same ledger do not possess.
Key aspects highlighted by Schwartz include XRP’s function as a counterparty-free asset accepted by any account on the ledger and its necessity for paying transaction fees. These characteristics underpin the token’s demand as ledger usage increases.
Schwartz’s thesis received prompt feedback from community members. Some argued that a higher XRP price is a prerequisite for the ledger’s success, rather than a secondary effect. Others referenced Schwartz’s previous explanations and expanded on the concept of XRP “capturing” value, suggesting it involves its central role as a liquidity bridge enabled by auto-bridging mechanisms.
In subsequent exchanges, Schwartz clarified that auto-bridging represents just one aspect of how XRP captures value on the ledger. He maintained that XRP’s singular status as the only counterparty-free asset, its requirement for network fees, and its overall integration position it to benefit as activity and value on the ledger expand.
Market observers noted that technical factors, such as transaction reliability and low operational costs, create an environment where both user adoption and related assets like XRP can see increased interest. This has parallels in the meme token market, where viral trends can swiftly generate substantial interest. Data from Fomo App pointed to a recent trade in which an investor turned $99 in the “Niu Lai” meme token into about $370,000, underlining the speed and scale of such movements. In markets exhibiting rapid sentiment shifts, tracking investors’ timing and token choices is increasingly important. Platforms like Fomo App are now combining features such as token discovery, social feeds, investor rankings, and trade notifications to help users monitor sector trends alongside key investor activity.
XRP stands out as the only asset on the ledger that does not require a counterparty and can be accepted universally by any account. Its necessity for paying fees, combined with these structural characteristics, strengthens its position as ledger volume and utility grow.
A social media influencer known as Time Traveler has reaffirmed his prediction that XRP could eventually reach $73,000 per token, stating that he has been sharing this forecast for over 600 days. The crypto enthusiast credits the price target to a dream and claims to have cited developments linked to Ripple’s international integrations following this experience.
Price target stirs debate on XTime Traveler outlined his stance in a recent post on X, formerly Twitter, addressing critics who question the credibility of his $73,000 projection for XRP. He reiterated that this price point originated from a dream and emphasized that he has maintained this outlook for nearly two years.
In response to a challenge about the soundness of his prediction, he insisted that he has been transparent about his beliefs, highlighting the consistency of his posts regarding Ripple’s progress and XRP’s potential valuation. However, he did not specify any particular year or deadline for the target price to materialize.
“Do not play yourself by saying I didn’t tell you. I told you for 600+ days!” he wrote in his latest post, defending his long-standing position against those dismissing his forecasts.
The post added to the ongoing debate about XRP’s price outlook, as other voices in the crypto community continue to question the rationale behind the bold forecast.
ChartNerd, another X user known for cryptocurrency technical analysis, commented on XRP’s recent performance, noting frustration with the coin’s current trading range. According to ChartNerd, XRP price had been fluctuating between a resistance ceiling near $1.50 and $1.60 and a support zone around $1.30 to $1.25 over a 10-week period, despite positive news and developments related to Ripple.
XRP Price RangeResistance LevelSupport LevelCurrent (last 10 weeks)$1.50 – $1.60$1.25 – $1.30Time Traveler’s post has generated varied reactions on social media. Some users voiced support, suggesting that if the forecast turns out to be accurate, early believers could see significant gains.
Derek John remarked that most people have mocked Time Traveler’s claims, but pointed out that those who take his prediction seriously stand to benefit if it comes true. Another user, SCUTIEBOY, pressed for clarification, asking Time Traveler to specify a year in which XRP could reach $73,000, highlighting the lack of a concrete timeline for the ambitious target.
Others expressed skepticism. Glen Douglass argued that such a valuation might only be possible in the distant future, possibly when inflation reduces the meaning of nominal figures. Douglass also questioned the credibility of making projections based solely on dreams.
Background on Time Traveler’s predictionTime Traveler has previously explained the background to his price target, revealing that he had not used X before experiencing a dream in which he saw XRP at $73,000 per token. Following this, he rebranded his account from Open Truth Ministry to Time Traveler, as he felt the experience was like jumping forward in time.
He described the early days of his social media presence, noting that he began with just 50 followers and gradually attracted a small but dedicated audience who supported his posts from the outset.
Reflecting on his forecast, Time Traveler presented two outcomes: either he was fabricating the story or genuinely reporting his dream. He added that it would be statistically improbable for his prediction to be accurate due to luck alone.
Despite his ongoing confidence, the $73,000 projection remains an unverified claim based largely on personal experience rather than traditional market analysis. There is currently no established timeline or verifiable evidence that could substantiate XRP reaching this target, and its realization would depend on a range of unpredictable market factors.
Mini dictionary: Ripple is a technology company that develops global payment and real-time gross settlement solutions, best known for its association with the cryptocurrency XRP. The company works with financial institutions worldwide to enable faster and more cost-effective cross-border transactions.
The Ethereum Foundation’s Austin Griffith put about $1 behind an easy-to-guess private key, and bots tried to take it within seconds.
Austin Griffith shows bots draining a wallet with a guessable private key
Posted October 23, 2026 at 8:35 pm ET.
Austin Griffith of the Ethereum Foundation put about $1 in an Ethereum wallet whose private key was the number 6969, and bots went after it almost at once. “As soon as the dollar landed, there were three transactions in the mempool pending trying to steal it,” Griffith said on Oct. 21 on Uneasy Money, the Unchained show he co-hosts.
A private key is the secret number that controls a wallet, so anyone who guesses it can move the funds. Griffith ran the test after a security failure at eMudhra, an Indian certificate authority. A disclosure site for the incident, set up by Mozilla’s Dennis Jackson, said the keys behind eight eMudhra intermediate certificates, created in April 2025, had been compromised, and researcher Scott Helme wrote that each was a number below 256, one of them 4. Firefox and Chrome blocked the certificates on Oct. 17, the day the problem was reported, and Microsoft followed on Oct. 20. On Oct. 22, after the episode was taped, eMudhra said it would leave the global SSL/TLS certificate business.
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What the Chain Shows
On-chain records reviewed by Unchained show that 0.0004 ETH, about $1, reached the address for key 6969 at 20:35 UTC on Oct. 21 in a deposit. A transaction signed with that same key moved it out in the next block, 12 seconds later, and spent most of the deposit on network fees. Transactions from three other addresses hit the wallet just after, and two of them failed. The deposit came from a wallet named slop.atg.eth, which was funded by austingriffith.eth.
Griffith also said “there’s not a number less than 256 that doesn’t already have a nonce,” the counter of transactions an address has sent. Unchained checked the addresses for all 255 such keys, 1 through 255, on Ethereum mainnet, and every one has sent transactions.
Testing Longer Keys
Before the result came in, Griffith guessed that bots would stop finding keys somewhere “between eight and 12” digits. Later in the episode, he said 10-digit keys were drained “right away,” while 12-digit keys had “not yet” been drained. He said he had also seeded a 14-digit key and a 16-digit key, “looking for someone to steal my dollar.”
Griffith did not name those keys, and Unchained could not independently check which ones he used. On-chain records show slop.atg.eth funded four more addresses about 14 minutes after the first deposit. One was emptied within 12 seconds, and three still held their funds as of Oct. 23, but the records do not show which key length each belongs to.
The hosts said they would check next week whether the 14- and 16-digit keys had been drained.
Related Listen: Uneasy Money: Is the Internet Breaking Because Bots Never Get Lazy?
AI-assisted content: This article was produced with the assistance of AI tools and was reviewed, edited, and fact-checked by a member of the Unchained editorial team before publication.
Co-founder Zon's preliminary read points to a MoveVM flaw, while D2 Finance traced the payouts to LayerZero adapters on Ethereum.
Initia's chain stays halted after an attacker minted and bridged out tokens
Posted October 23, 2026 at 10:35 pm ET.
Anyone holding assets on Initia is waiting on a restart. Initia’s layer 1 and its rollups have been offline since 11:41 a.m. ET on Friday, when the team cited a “security incident,” and it had not said when they would come back as of 5:52 p.m. ET. Initia said in the same notice that it was working “to establish the full scope of any impact with security teams, validators, and exchanges.”
Co-founder Zon pointed to Initia’s own software, citing preliminary findings. He wrote that it was “a Day 0 bug related to Initia’s MoveVM on CosmosSDK that allowed the exploiter to mint additional tokens on the Initia L1 but does not apply to native INIT tokens.” The attacker managed to “mint and bridge out ~$2.7m worth of AUSD, ETH, and USDC before the chain was paused,” he added.
Pseudonymous researcher Spreek flagged the attack at 11:27 a.m. ET, 14 minutes before the halt, estimating $2.6 million cashed out.
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How the Funds Left D2 Finance, which published a breakdown of the transactions, said one transaction at 10:59 a.m. ET minted 2 million AUSD on the Initia side. By D2’s account, those unbacked tokens were burned and sent over LayerZero to Ethereum, where OFT adapters, lockbox contracts holding the real tokens behind Initia’s bridged versions, paid out. D2 wrote that “an OFT adapter cannot check whether burned tokens were ever backed.”
D2 said the attacker pulled 1.4 million AUSD, 71% of the AUSD adapter’s holdings, leaving about 576,000, plus 105 ETH, 96% of the native-ETH adapter. Another 1.08 million USDC arrived as new mints through Circle’s CCTP. In D2’s telling, $2.65 million had reached Ethereum within seven minutes and 21 seconds of the mint.
Agora Says AUSD Is Unaffected Agora, which issues AUSD, said at 12:57 p.m. ET that it “has no smart contracts deployed on Initia.” At 2:26 p.m. ET it added that “AUSD does not exist on Initia,” and that “AUSD is fully backed.” Agora’s statements indicate the token minted on Initia was a bridged representation rather than AUSD itself. D2 said the AUSD that left came from an Ethereum lockbox adapter backing that bridged token.
Onchain records show the 1.4 million AUSD sat in the attacker’s Ethereum address for about 84 seconds before it was traded away on the 1inch aggregator at 11:03 a.m. ET. Agora froze that address at 12:31 p.m. ET, roughly 89 minutes later and before its first statement, when the address held no AUSD.
The same address sent 1,135.5 ETH, which D2 valued at about $2.7 million, to a newly used wallet at 11:41 a.m. ET, the minute the halt took effect.
Initia’s own account has not confirmed Zon’s loss figure or published a post-mortem. It said it would post verified updates through its official channels.
Related Listen: Who’s to Blame for How KelpDAO’s DVN Was Set Up? KelpDAO or LayerZero?
AI-assisted content: This article was produced with the assistance of AI tools and was reviewed, edited, and fact-checked by a member of the Unchained editorial team before publication.
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Austin Griffith, a developer associated with the Ethereum Foundation, conducted an experiment by depositing approximately $1 worth of ETH into an Ethereum wallet secured with the private key set to the number 6969. Shortly after the funds arrived, automated bots began targeting the wallet, attempting to drain its contents almost immediately. Griffith discussed the results on the “Uneasy Money” segment of the Unchained podcast, which he co-hosts.
Rapid bot activity targets weak private keysOn-chain data confirmed that 0.0004 ETH, equivalent to about $1, was sent to the address corresponding to the key 6969 at 20:35 UTC on October 21. Within just 12 seconds, a transaction using the same key moved the funds out, with most of the deposit consumed by network fees. Three other addresses sent transactions to this wallet in rapid succession, but two attempts were unsuccessful.
Griffith’s deposit originated from a wallet labeled slop.atg.eth, which itself received funding from the austingriffith.eth address. This quick sequence of events showcased the vigilance of automated systems designed to monitor and exploit wallets with weak private keys.
On the show, Griffith observed that as soon as the deposit landed, three transactions were immediately pending in the mempool attempting to steal the funds.
He further remarked, “there’s not a number less than 256 that doesn’t already have a nonce,” indicating that all straightforward, low-number Ethereum private keys have been used to send transactions—suggesting near-complete scans by automated programs.
Mini dictionary: Mempool – Short for “memory pool,” this is a collection of unconfirmed transactions waiting to be mined into blocks on a blockchain network.
Testing key lengths and bot responsesAhead of the experiment, Griffith predicted that automated bots would likely stop actively searching for easy-to-guess keys somewhere between eight and twelve digits. However, he later updated his findings, stating that wallets with 10-digit keys were emptied “right away,” while those with 12-digit keys remained untouched at the time of the discussion. He also mentioned having seeded wallets with 14-digit and 16-digit private keys as part of the ongoing test, intentionally inviting would-be attackers by depositing small amounts.
Griffith did not make public the exact values of these longer private keys. A review of on-chain records by Unchained showed that slop.atg.eth funded four additional wallet addresses about 14 minutes after the initial deposit. Of these, one wallet was emptied within 12 seconds, while three continued to hold their funds as of October 23. The particular key lengths associated with these addresses were not specified.
The podcast hosts noted their intention to follow up the following week to determine whether the 14- and 16-digit key wallets remained secure or were eventually compromised by bots.
Griffith stated that during his investigation, every private key from 1 up to 255 had already sent at least one transaction on the Ethereum mainnet, underscoring the thoroughness of automated scanning.
Automated scanning of simple keys on EthereumEthereum transactions utilize private keys, usually long and randomly generated, to secure assets. Using predictable or short private keys makes wallets susceptible to attacks by bots that systematically search for vulnerable credentials. This experiment highlighted the prevalence and speed of such automated tools on Ethereum’s main network.
The results demonstrate that Ethereum mainnet wallets with very short, simple keys are immediately targeted and drained, often within seconds, which points to persistent surveillance by wallet-draining bots. More complex keys with greater length appeared to evade immediate discovery, but the experiment is ongoing to determine their eventual safety.
The story originates from a segment addressing whether bots are compromising the openness of the internet by automating vast portions of network activity.
US retail investors’ bottom-fishing in semiconductor leveraged ETFs takes a hit, with SOXL plunging 20.5% in a single day.
FactSet data shows that Direxion Daily Semiconductor Bull 3X Shares (SOXL) drew $6.1 billion in inflows last week, a new single-week record. Investors were betting on a rebound in chip stocks, but SOXL still dropped 10.8% this week, marking its third straight weekly decline, with a cumulative fall of over 43% since October. Inflows continued through Thursday, but SOXL plunged 20.5% that day, its largest single-day drop since June 23. By comparison, non-leveraged iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX) fell 6.8% on the same day, with a cumulative decline of around 15.9% since October. SOXL uses derivatives to track three times the daily performance of the semiconductor index, amplifying both gains and downside risks. The semiconductor sector is under pressure mainly due to market skepticism about the return on investment in AI infrastructure. Investors are reassessing whether tech giants’ aggressive spending can meet earnings expectations. Earlier, AI chip demand lifted semiconductor stocks, with SOXX’s year-to-date gain once nearing 59%, but recent sell-offs have tested its rally. Mike Reynolds, vice president of investment strategy at Glenmede, noted that semiconductors are highly sensitive to AI infrastructure development, and AI-related trades are currently facing some doubt. He added that after strong stock rallies and valuation expansions, investors’ re-examination of the AI theme’s potential returns is a healthy market move. Meanwhile, all three major U.S. stock indexes closed lower on Friday, with the S&P 500 Information Technology sector falling for the third consecutive week, its longest weekly losing streak since March.
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Initia discloses details of the MoveVM vulnerability attack, suffering losses of approximately $2.7 million, while the INIT token supply remains unaffected.
Initia disclosed that at 22:59 Beijing time on October 23, attackers exploited a MoveVM script cache vulnerability to bypass security checks, forging states to add unsupported WETH, iUSD, and USDC balances to their accounts without altering the total supply of the respective tokens. The native INIT token was not minted, and its total supply remained unaffected. Before the network was shut down, the attacker transferred 105 WETH and approximately 1.4 million AUSD0 via LayerZero, and around 1.08 million USDC via Noble and CCTP, with total assets valued at roughly $2.7 million. These assets have been converted into 1135.52 ETH. Initia's L1 and Rollups remain suspended. The team is fixing the vulnerability, with repairs and audits expected to be completed within days, and is working with security partners to recover the stolen assets. The official added that a full incident analysis report will be released later, and reminded users to beware of unofficial links, messages, and statements.
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Analyst: Bitcoin has seen notable pullbacks in every prior U.S. midterm election cycle, and its key support level of $73,000 requires close attention.
Crypto analyst Ali Charts wrote in a post that as the November 3 US midterm elections approach, investors may overlook the recurring Bitcoin pullbacks seen in previous election cycles. He believes this election could again bring significant volatility, with downside risks worth noting, and his key support level to watch is $73,000. According to his statistics, Bitcoin saw pullbacks of 72%, 65%, 52%, and 27% during the US midterm election cycles in 2010, 2014, 2018, and 2022 respectively. However, he emphasized that correlation does not equal causation; the elections themselves may not be the cause of the drops, and these pullbacks are also influenced by Bitcoin’s overall market cycle, liquidity conditions, and investor sentiment.
Q4 returns show a similar pattern: Bitcoin fell 16.70%, 42.16%, and 14.75% in Q4 of 2014, 2018, and 2022 respectively. The only exception was 2010, when it rose 391%—though Bitcoin was still in its early stages back then. As a result, three of the past four midterm election years saw negative Q4 returns.
Regarding future price action, Ali Charts noted that the $73,000 level is near the average acquisition cost of Bitcoin’s current short-term holders, making it a key area to monitor the positioning of recent investors. He pointed out that in an established bull market, Bitcoin often finds support near the short-term holder average cost after a significant pullback. He believes that if selling pressure accelerates after the November 3 elections, pushing Bitcoin back toward $73,000, this zone will be a critical level to test whether buyers are still willing to uphold the overall bullish trend. If prices rebound sustainably from this area, it will reinforce the bullish thesis. For trading, he will wait for signs of selling pressure drying up and demand reemerging before considering opening long positions.
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SpaceX’s $40 billion off-balance-sheet debt financing is facing pressure on pricing negotiations amid turmoil in the AI market.
According to Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter, SpaceX is negotiating a $40 billion off-balance-sheet debt financing plan, which would use a special purpose vehicle (SPV) to purchase Nvidia chips to support its AI business expansion. The structure is designed to keep the related liabilities off SpaceX’s balance sheet, preserving its investment-grade credit rating. However, recent turmoil in the AI sector has pushed up industry borrowing costs, complicating pricing negotiations. Banks led by Goldman Sachs are discussing the plan with investors led by Apollo; Apollo-backed Atlas SP would manage the entity, with Pimco also considering participation.
Previously, yields on some subordinated debt were discussed in the mid-8% to 9% range, but recent volatility has prompted investors to reevaluate pricing, and the two sides remain in talks. SpaceX’s financial filings this week also revealed that last year, xAI had attempted to raise up to $20 billion in off-balance-sheet debt via a sale-leaseback arrangement with Valor Equity Partners. Auditors classified the deal as a “failed sale-leaseback arrangement”, leading SpaceX to eventually record roughly $13 billion of the sum as its own debt. The proposed structure aims to avoid a repeat of that outcome.
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South Korean stock market's retail war chest shrank by 36.5%; retail investors continued net buying, but capital replenishment has slowed.
Data from Korea Financial Investment Association shows that as of October 22, investor deposits at South Korean securities firms fell to 88.68 trillion won, a drop of around 51 trillion won from the all-time high of 139.69 trillion won recorded on June 4, representing a 36.5% decline and returning to levels seen at the start of the year. The balance dipped below 90 trillion won on October 21, marking the first such drop in nearly nine months.
Investor deposits refer to funds held in securities firm accounts that have not yet been used to purchase assets such as stocks, and are typically viewed as potential buying power. The decline in the balance can stem from either stock purchases or fund withdrawals, so the full drop cannot be equated to capital exiting the stock market.
Retail investors continue to make net purchases. Between June 4 and October 23, individual investors bought a net 44.17 trillion won in the KOSPI market and 3.15 trillion won in the KOSDAQ market, while net purchases of ETFs over the same period reached 28.25 trillion won. The report notes that unlike the first half of the year, where new capital inflows exceeded stock purchases, the pace of capital replenishment in the second half has lagged behind outflows, leading to the continuous decline in deposit balances.
The KOSPI index closed at 5550.30 points on October 23, having fallen nearly 20% over the past month. A securities industry official said the recent decline is indeed excessive relative to earnings fundamentals, but the AI sector, which previously drove gains, still faces credit risk concerns, making it too early to expect a sustained rebound.
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Renowned Trader: Bitcoin Should Add Positions Instead of Panicking When It Hits $80,000 'Buy Zone'
Renowned crypto trader Doctor Profit stated in a post that every time Bitcoin hits its "buy zone", it is an opportune moment to add to existing long positions, and he is currently executing this strategy. His accompanying chart labels the area near $80,000 as the "buy zone", emphasizing: "This zone is for buying, not panicking."
Ethereum’s [ETH] deflationary edge over Bitcoin may be fading.
Since the merge, 55.4% of the newly issued ETH has been burned. However, this number has dropped significantly to only 2.7% over the last thirty days. In addition, ETH’s yearly supply growth has increased to 0.86%, which is almost Bitcoin’s 0.82%. That’s a sharp pullback in ETH burning, impacting its scarcity argument and potentially challenging the long-term bullish thesis versus BTC.
So, with ETH’s deflationary narrative being challenged, its next leg higher could increasingly rely on demand for Ethereum’s Layer 1 block space. As the chart below shows, gas prices have dropped from 2.76 Gwei to just 0.03 Gwei in two days, fueling the “Is ETH the new SOL?” debate. But cheaper prices are not always good, as they can also signal weaker demand for the block space.
Source: EtherScan Notably, this is where a key on-chain metric comes into play.
According to CryptoQuant data, Ethereum Velocity is at 11.03, implying that ETH is circulated actively on the blockchain. Moreover, the number of active addresses has hit 627k, suggesting growing adoption. And if the demand is sustained on a declining gas fee, the cost to transact on ETH will remain cheap despite active use.
In this context, declining gas fees could be a bullish sign, which brings ETH/BTC back to the forefront. While Ethereum’s deflationary edge is being eroded, strong Layer 1 activity could offset it. The important question is whether ongoing on-chain demand will catalyze a rebound in ETH/BTC. In turn, translate into a stronger relative performance against Bitcoin [BTC].
Ethereum’s bullish positioning raises hopes of BTC outperformance The divergence between ETH’s technical and fundamental setup is growing interesting.
While the overall whale activity seems to be cooling, the Bitfinex whales’ ETH long positions are rising sharply, suggesting smart money is positioning for further upside. Meanwhile, ETH/BTC is also showing a pattern similar to its pre-altseason setup in 2021, forming higher highs and retesting its trendline.
On-chain data adds another bullish sign. According to Santiment, about 169k ETH left exchanges on a net basis. This marked the largest daily outflow in more than four months. A similar development occurred on the 5th of June when roughly 223,800 ETH left exchanges as ETH reached its lowest price since the beginning of April 2025, only to climb rapidly in the following days.
Source: Santiment Taken together, strong network activity, rising whale longs, and a significant ETH exchange outflow make up Ethereum’s bullish case. Should ETH/BTC follow the same pattern as it did in 2021 ahead of the altseason, another breakout could be on the way.
The logic is simple: While Ethereum’s advantage over Bitcoin in terms of deflationary properties has weakened, an increase in layer 1 demand, rising whale longs, and ongoing exchange outflows may create conditions for a supply squeeze. Taken together, these factors suggest ETH could be building momentum for a potential breakout against BTC once the market turns back to risk-on.
Final Summary Rising Ethereum activity could support ETH’s recovery against BTC.
Whale longs and ETH outflows could help Ethereum outperform Bitcoin when market sentiment improves.
Pi Network (PI) is down 2% today, October 24, to trade at $0.078 at the time of writing. This dip mirrors the downtrend across the broader crypto market, where the total market cap has fallen by 1.37% to $2.7 trillion.
Bitcoin (BTC) had dropped below $81,000 at the time of writing, while Ethereum also fell below $2,400. Following this drop, PI is now inching close to a make-to-break support despite a recently launched desktop upgrade.
Pi Core Team Rolls Out Major Desktop Upgrade In an X post, the Pi Core team noted that the network had released Desktop Version 0.6.4. The upgrade targets SoloHost apps to ensure that pioneers can access apps such as local AI agents through their phone’s Pi Browser.
The team notes that this upgrade will not only boost accessibility to SoloHost apps but also increase security by checking the access rights on apps before they are installed and every time that they start.
This upgrade comes ahead of the first-ever Pi Ecosystem Summit that will take place between November 17 and 19, as earlier reported by CoinGape. During this summit, the Pi Core team has said it plans to unveil new features and platforms.
Pi Network also recently rolled out the Protocol 28 upgrade on the mainnet on October 16, as earlier reported by CoinGape. The upgrade sought to improve network efficiency and smart contract management.
Pi Network Price Defends Crucial $0.077 Support as AO Bars Hint at a bullish Divergence Pi Network price remains above the crucial support level at $0.077 despite the recent surge in selling pressure. The altcoin has not closed below this support since mid-July suggesting that buyers view this price to be a good entry point.
However, the uncollected liquidity below this price could act as a magnet that pulls Pi Network down.
If selling pressure increases, Pi Coin price might drop to collect liquidity $0.074. An extended dip below this price might see bears test support at the psychological all-time low of $0.070.
On the upside, there is a FVG gap between $0.083 and $0.086. Pi Network price needs to close above the midline of this FVG gap at $0.084 to confirm a bullish future Pi Coin price outlook. If PI tests the resistance at $0.084 and fails to close above it, it could suggest that the bears remain in control.
Source: TradingView The AO bars that have turned green despite the recent drop in price are creating a bullish divergence as bearish pressure fades.
However, the ADX line supports the bearish thesis, with its movement north suggesting that the uptrend is gaining strength.
In May 2023, the Ethereum blockchain faced its first inactivity leak, a mechanism designed to restore chain finalization amid prolonged network disruptions. This feature aims to reduce the voting power of validators who become unreachable, redistributing their power to active validators. Our investigation delves into the safety implications of this inactivity leak within the Ethereum blockchain. Through theoretical analysis, we explore how Byzantine validators might expedite the finalization of conflicting branches or reach a voting power exceeding the critical safety threshold of one-third. Additionally, we revisit the probabilistic bouncing attack, demonstrating how the inactivity leak might allow Byzantine validators to breach safety thresholds. This article uncovers how penalizing inactive nodes can undermine blockchain properties, especially when Byzantine validators can coordinate their actions.
I. Overview
Background
In September 2022, Ethereum transitioned from a proof-of-work (PoW) consensus mechanism to a proof-of-stake (PoS) protocol. This change aimed to improve energy efficiency and scalability. The Ethereum PoS protocol is unique due to its hybrid nature, combining elements of classical Byzantine Fault-Tolerant (BFT) Consensus with the Nakamoto-style blockchain framework. In BFT blockchains, validators explicitly vote on block proposals, ensuring that once a block is added, it remains permanently incorporated. In contrast, Nakamoto-style blockchains allow forks but eventually reconcile to a single chain.
Motivation
The motivation behind this study stems from Ethereum's introduction of the inactivity leak, a penalty mechanism designed to address prolonged network disruptions. When validators become unreachable, their voting power is reduced and redistributed to active validators. While this mechanism aims to restore chain finalization and maintain liveness during network partitions, it raises significant concerns about its impact on the blockchain's safety. Specifically, the potential for Byzantine validators to exploit the inactivity leak to expedite the finalization of conflicting branches or gain a voting power exceeding the critical safety threshold of one-third necessitates a thorough investigation.
Contributions
This article is mainly based on the many sources, one of our main contents came from Byzantine Attacks Exploiting Penalties in Ethereum PoS from authors: Ulysse Pavloff, Yackolley Amoussou-Genou, Sara Tucci-Piergiovanni
This paper makes several key contributions:
Formal Analysis of the Inactivity Leak: They provide the first formal description of the inactivity leak, detailing its operational mechanics and its intended purpose within the Ethereum PoS protocol.
Impact on Safety: Our analysis explores various configurations and scenarios to understand how the inactivity leak influences the safety of the Ethereum blockchain, particularly under the influence of Byzantine validators.
Revisiting Known Attacks: We reexamine the probabilistic bouncing attack in the context of the inactivity leak, demonstrating how this attack can be leveraged to probabilistically breach safety thresholds.
Theoretical and Practical Insights: The findings offer valuable insights for both theoretical research and practical implementations of penalty mechanisms in PoS blockchains.
Organization of the Paper
The paper is structured to provide a comprehensive exploration of the inactivity leak and its implications. The organization is as follows:
Introduction: An overview of the motivation, contributions, and structure of the paper.
System Model and Ethereum Protocol: A detailed description of the Ethereum PoS protocol, including its safety and liveness trade-offs, Byzantine fault tolerance, and the inactivity leak mechanism.
Analysis of Safety Loss Scenarios: An in-depth analysis of scenarios where safety might be compromised, including conflicting finalization with honest validators and coordinated Byzantine attacks.
Revisiting the Probabilistic Bouncing Attack: A thorough reexamination of the probabilistic bouncing attack, assessing its impact in the presence of the inactivity leak and presenting simulation results.
Future Work: A discussion of the implications of our findings for Ethereum and other PoS blockchains, along with directions for future research.
Conclusions: A summary of our findings, emphasizing the importance of refining penalty mechanisms to ensure blockchain safety and stability.
II. System Model and Ethereum Protocol
Ethereum PoS Protocol Overview
Ethereum's shift to proof-of-stake (PoS) in September 2022 was a landmark event, transitioning from the energy-intensive proof-of-work (PoW) to a more sustainable and scalable consensus mechanism. The Ethereum PoS protocol combines elements of classical Byzantine Fault-Tolerant (BFT) Consensus with the Nakamoto-style blockchain, creating a hybrid model. In this system, validators are selected based on their stake to propose and validate new blocks, aiming to achieve consensus through voting. The protocol leverages a fork-choice rule to determine the canonical chain from a tree-like structure of blocks, ensuring that the blockchain can adapt and reconcile forks to maintain a single chain.
Safety and Liveness Trade-offs
In the context of blockchain protocols, safety and liveness are critical properties that need to be balanced. Safety ensures that the blockchain does not fork, meaning that once a block is finalized, it cannot be revoked. Liveness, on the other hand, ensures that the blockchain continues to grow and accept new transactions.
BFT Consensus: BFT blockchains achieve safety by using super-majority quorums to finalize blocks, preventing forks but potentially halting growth during network partitions or failures. This trade-off means that while the blockchain is safe, it may not always be live.
Nakamoto-style Blockchains: These blockchains are designed to remain live even during network disruptions, as they allow for the existence of multiple forks. Eventually, they reconcile to a single chain, but this means they can experience temporary forks, which poses a challenge to safety.
Ethereum PoS: Ethereum PoS aims to balance these trade-offs by maintaining a finalized chain alongside a forkable chain. The finalized chain is protected by BFT mechanisms, ensuring safety, while the forkable chain continues to grow, ensuring liveness.
Byzantine Fault Tolerance
Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT) is a critical aspect of blockchain security, ensuring that the protocol can withstand malicious actions by up to one-third of the validators. In BFT systems, validators vote on proposed blocks, and a block is only considered finalized if it receives votes from a super-majority of validators. This mechanism ensures that even if some validators act maliciously or become unreachable, the blockchain can still achieve consensus and finalize blocks.
Inactivity Leak Mechanism
Definition and Purpose
The inactivity leak is a penalty mechanism introduced to handle scenarios where validators become inactive or unreachable due to network disruptions. When validators fail to participate in the consensus process for an extended period, their stake and voting power are gradually reduced. This reduction is intended to reallocate voting power to active validators, thereby restoring the blockchain's ability to achieve finalization and maintain liveness.
Impact on Voting Power
The inactivity leak directly affects the distribution of voting power among validators. By penalizing inactive validators, the mechanism ensures that the remaining active validators have increased influence in the consensus process. This reallocation is crucial for restoring liveness during network partitions, as it allows the blockchain to continue finalizing blocks despite the absence of some validators. However, this mechanism also introduces potential risks, particularly if Byzantine validators can exploit it to gain a disproportionate amount of voting power.
Restoring Liveness: During network partitions or disruptions, the inactivity leak helps maintain liveness by reducing the influence of inactive validators and empowering active ones to continue finalizing blocks.
Risks to Safety: The redistribution of voting power can create scenarios where Byzantine validators, through coordinated actions, may exploit the inactivity leak to increase their influence. This can lead to safety breaches, such as the finalization of conflicting chains or exceeding the critical one-third threshold of Byzantine voting power.
Ethereum's Unique Hybrid Model
Ethereum PoS's hybrid model of maintaining a finalized and non-finalized chain within a single data structure aims to offer the best of both BFT and Nakamoto-style blockchains. The finalized chain guarantees safety, ensuring that once a block is finalized, it remains unaltered. The non-finalized chain allows for continued growth and transaction processing, ensuring liveness even during adverse network conditions.
The Ethereum PoS protocol's innovative combination of BFT and Nakamoto-style elements, along with the introduction of the inactivity leak, represents a significant advancement in blockchain technology. However, this complexity also introduces new challenges, particularly regarding the balance between safety and liveness and the potential exploitation by Byzantine validators. Understanding these dynamics is crucial for ensuring the robustness and security of the Ethereum blockchain.
III. Analysis of Safety Loss Scenarios
Conflicting Finalization with Honest Validators
Network Partitions and CAP Theorem
Network partitions can disrupt the Ethereum blockchain's operation, potentially leading to conflicting finalization of blocks. The CAP theorem, which states that a distributed system can only achieve two out of three properties—consistency, availability, and partition tolerance—underlines the challenge of maintaining both safety and liveness during network partitions. In Ethereum PoS, this means that while efforts are made to maintain liveness by allowing the chain to continue growing, safety can be compromised if different parts of the network finalize conflicting blocks independently.
Independent Finalization on Different Chains
During network partitions, validators in different network segments may finalize different blocks independently. This situation arises when validators in one partition finalize one set of blocks, while validators in another partition finalize a different set. As a result, the blockchain can face conflicting finalization, where multiple chains claim to be the valid continuation of the blockchain. This scenario challenges the blockchain's safety guarantees, as transactions on conflicting branches may lead to inconsistencies and potential double-spending.
Byzantine validators can exploit network partitions and the inactivity leak to accelerate conflicting finalization intentionally. In scenarios where Byzantine validators strategically coordinate their actions, they can exploit the reduced influence of honest validators (due to network partitions or penalties from the inactivity leak) to finalize conflicting blocks quickly. This coordinated action undermines the blockchain's safety guarantees, as it introduces uncertainty about the true state of the blockchain.
Breaching the Safety Threshold
Another significant risk arises when Byzantine validators coordinate to exceed the critical one-third threshold of voting power. In Ethereum PoS, maintaining safety relies on ensuring that less than one-third of validators are Byzantine. However, if Byzantine validators can increase their influence through strategic actions during network disruptions or by exploiting the inactivity leak, they may collectively control more than one-third of the voting power. This breach of the safety threshold can lead to irreversible decisions and compromises the integrity of the blockchain.
IV. Revisiting the Probabilistic Bouncing Attack
Original Attack Description
The probabilistic bouncing attack is a known strategy in blockchain environments, particularly relevant in proof-of-stake (PoS) protocols like Ethereum. This attack exploits periods of network uncertainty or synchronization to delay block finalization intentionally. Validators participating in the consensus process strategically withhold their votes or propose conflicting blocks, leading to prolonged ambiguity about which chain should be considered the canonical one. By introducing delays in the finalization process, the attack undermines the blockchain's liveness guarantees, as transactions may remain pending or reversible for extended periods.
sources: arxiv.org
Impact of the Inactivity Leak
The introduction of the inactivity leak mechanism amplifies the effectiveness of the probabilistic bouncing attack. This penalty mechanism penalizes validators who become inactive due to network disruptions or strategic inactivity. As inactive validators lose stake and voting power over time, active validators gain a disproportionate influence in the consensus process. This redistribution of voting power alters the dynamics of the blockchain's security model, potentially creating opportunities for malicious actors to exploit.
In the context of the probabilistic bouncing attack, the inactivity leak exacerbates the impact during periods of network synchrony. Byzantine validators can strategically become inactive to avoid penalties and then coordinate attacks when network conditions are favorable. By delaying finalization through strategic inactivity and subsequent coordinated actions, malicious validators can prolong uncertainty about the blockchain's state, further compromising its liveness and integrity.
Conditions for Safety Threshold Breach
Our analysis identifies specific conditions under which the probabilistic bouncing attack, augmented by the inactivity leak, can breach the safety threshold of Ethereum PoS. These conditions include prolonged network partitions, strategic coordination among Byzantine validators to exploit penalties, and the operational mechanics of the inactivity leak itself. The combination of these factors creates a scenario where Byzantine validators can probabilistically control the blockchain's decision-making process, potentially leading to irreversible decisions or conflicting finalizations.
Simulation Results and Discussion
Simulation studies provide empirical evidence of how the probabilistic bouncing attack, enhanced by the inactivity leak, impacts Ethereum's safety and liveness properties. By modeling various attack scenarios and network conditions, we illustrate the potential vulnerabilities introduced by the inactivity leak and the strategies employed by Byzantine validators to exploit them. Discussions delve into the implications of these findings for blockchain security and propose strategies for mitigating the risks posed by such attacks.
source: arxiv.org
V. Future Work
Summary of Findings
Our study has highlighted significant vulnerabilities in Ethereum's proof-of-stake (PoS) protocol, particularly concerning the probabilistic bouncing attack and the inactivity leak mechanism. These findings underscore the importance of enhancing blockchain security while maintaining robustness in consensus mechanisms. We have identified critical areas where future research and development efforts can focus to address these challenges effectively.
Implications for Ethereum and Other PoS Blockchains
The implications extend beyond Ethereum to other PoS blockchains that utilize penalty mechanisms and face similar security challenges. Understanding these vulnerabilities provides a foundation for improving the design and implementation of future blockchain protocols. Key implications include:
Security Enhancements: Develop more resilient penalty mechanisms that mitigate the risks posed by Byzantine attacks and strategic network disruptions.
Consensus Protocol Optimization: Refine consensus algorithms to improve their ability to handle network partitions and maintain safety and liveness guarantees simultaneously.
Governance and Protocol Design: Implement governance structures that can adapt dynamically to emerging threats and vulnerabilities, ensuring continuous improvement and adaptation of blockchain protocols.
Directions for Future Research
Future research efforts should prioritize the following areas to advance blockchain security and resilience:
Enhanced Penalty Mechanisms: Investigate novel penalty mechanisms that discourage malicious behavior while incentivizing active participation and network stability.
Dynamic Governance Models: Explore governance frameworks that enable swift responses to security threats, including protocol upgrades and adjustments to consensus rules.
Formal Verification and Security Audits: Conduct rigorous formal verification and security audits of blockchain protocols to identify and mitigate potential vulnerabilities before deployment.
Cross-Chain Interoperability: Address interoperability challenges between different PoS blockchains to foster collaboration and enhance overall blockchain ecosystem resilience.
Related Work and References
Our study builds upon existing research in Ethereum PoS, Byzantine fault tolerance, and consensus algorithm design. Further exploration into related work can provide deeper insights and inspire innovative solutions to address current and future challenges in blockchain security.
Conclusion
Our exploration of the probabilistic bouncing attack and the inactivity leak in Ethereum PoS has underscored critical vulnerabilities that require immediate attention. By focusing on enhancing security mechanisms, optimizing consensus protocols, and fostering collaborative research, the blockchain community can strengthen the resilience of PoS blockchains against malicious actors and network disruptions. Through these efforts, we aim to contribute to the evolution of blockchain technologies towards more secure, efficient, and trustworthy decentralized systems.
The tokenization of Real-World Assets (RWA) is no longer a distant vision, it’s unfolding rapidly on Ethereum, where stablecoins, tokenized Treasurys, and institutional funds are driving record adoption. Last week alone, Ethereum’s stablecoin supply expanded by $5 billion, pushing circulation to an all-time high of $165 billion.
This surge highlights a fundamental shift: digital assets are becoming the infrastructure of global finance. As trillions in RWAs prepare to move on-chain, one critical question emerges, can today’s infrastructure deliver the audit-grade trust, compliance, and scalability that institutions require?
This is where Orochi Network, the world’s first audit-grade data infrastructure for RWA tokenization, provides the missing layer, transforming raw data into provable, verifiable data through its flagship platform, zkDatabase.
Ethereum’s Stablecoin Momentum In just one week, Ethereum’s stablecoin supply surged by nearly $5 billion, pushing circulation to an unprecedented $165 billion. This milestone not only cements Ethereum’s role as the hub of stablecoin liquidity but also underlines its dominance in the broader Real-World Asset (RWA) tokenization landscape. Today, Ethereum holds over 57% of the stablecoin market, while also powering a growing wave of tokenized gold, U.S. Treasurys, and institutional funds.
But as more RWAs and stablecoins flow on-chain, one challenge grows louder: infrastructure bottlenecks. Ethereum can secure transactions, but it cannot guarantee audit-grade data integrity, cross-chain compliance, or privacy-preserving verification of real-world assets.
This is where Orochi Network and its flagship platform, zkDatabase, redefine the standards for tokenization infrastructure.
Source: Tokenterminal
The Stablecoin Boom and the Next Frontier - RWAs Stablecoins are no longer just a crypto-native tool. They are the bridge between traditional finance and decentralized finance (DeFi):
Payment rails: USDC and USDT dominate remittances and settlement.
Trading collateral: Nearly all DeFi derivatives rely on stablecoins for liquidity.
Onboarding traditional finance: Tokenized money-market funds and Treasurys are now live on Ethereum.
This success, however, points to the next big wave, RWA tokenization. Institutions like Fidelity and Franklin Templeton are experimenting with tokenized funds on Ethereum. Real estate, commodities, and even intellectual property are poised to follow.
To tokenize trillions in assets, the industry needs more than Ethereum’s blockspace. It needs audit-grade infrastructure for RWA tokenization, infrastructure that can prove assets are real, compliant, and interoperable across ecosystems.
The Infrastructural Gap in Ethereum’s RWA Ecosystem Despite Ethereum’s dominance, the current infrastructure faces limitations:
Data Integrity: Smart contracts cannot independently verify whether off-chain data (bond prices, real estate deeds) are legitimate.
Data Availability: On-chain storage is expensive and impractical for large datasets.
Interoperability: RWAs must interact across blockchains, but existing solutions lack standardized proofs.
Scalability: Existing Data Availability (DA) layers rely on old architectures that fail to deliver succinct, verifiable proofs.
These bottlenecks are why many tokenization projects remain in pilot phases. Without verifiable infrastructure, RWAs risk being reduced to trusted representations, replicating the same problems of traditional finance.
Orochi Network - Building Audit-Grade Infrastructure for RWA Tokenization Orochi Network is the world’s first Verifiable Data Infrastructure. It provides the missing layer between real-world assets and decentralized finance by transforming raw data into verifiable data.
Key Innovations: Verifiable Data Pipeline: Every step of data processing, sampling, transformation, storage, is cryptographically proven. No third-party trust required.
Native ZK-Data rollups: Unlike DA layers that just store data, Orochi compresses entire datasets into
succinct Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs). This enables compliance checks and asset verification on-chain at minimal cost.
By solving these bottlenecks, Orochi becomes the audit-grade backbone for RWAs, stablecoins, and next-generation DeFi.
zkDatabase: The Engine of Verifiable RWA Tokenization At the core of Orochi Network lies zkDatabase, a specialized platform that merges modern noSQL database architecture with advanced cryptographic modules.
What Makes zkDatabase Unique? Zero-Knowledge-Proof: Queries and transactions are provably correct without exposing underlying data.
Enterprise-Grade Scalability: Built on modular architecture, with planned support for next-gen proof systems like Plonky3.
Privacy by Default: Using zkSNARKs and homomorphic encryption, zkDatabase allows institutions to prove compliance (KYC/AML, asset backing) without revealing raw records.
Flexible Deployment: Operates fully off-chain for simplicity or via on-chain rollups (Mina, Ethereum L2s) for audit-grade compliance.
Use Cases for zkDatabase in RWA & Stablecoins Tokenized Treasurys & Funds: Asset managers can prove reserves cryptographically.
Stablecoins: Issuers can demonstrate 1:1 backing without exposing banking records.
Real Estate: Land registries can tokenize deeds while preserving private details.
Supply Chains: zkDatabase can verify product authenticity without leaking trade secrets.
In essence, zkDatabase is the infrastructure support for RWA and stablecoin ecosystems, the missing engine for institutional adoption.
Helix – Pioneering tokenized financial products with verifiable compliance.
Plume Network – Building RWA-native infrastructure for cross-border tokenization.
Lumia – Innovating on-chain real estate and asset-backed securities with privacy-first proofs.
Welf Finance – Integrating zkDatabase for privacy-preserving wealth management compliance.
XDC Network – Bridging trade finance and tokenized commodities with verifiable data.
These partnerships showcase how zkDatabase is not theoretical, it’s actively powering and connecting with RWA pioneers, positioning Orochi Network as the trusted backbone for the tokenized economy. Read more: How Orochi Network’s zkDatabase Empowers HELIX to Scale Real-World Asset Finance?
Competitive Landscape: Why Orochi Leads Projects like Celestia, Avail, and EigenDA provide data availability, but they lack native ZKP integration. They can store data, but they cannot prove it.
Orochi Network’s edge:
Proof-of-Everything: From data sampling to transformation, every step carries a cryptographic proof.
Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) Structure: Enhances scalability and performance beyond linear blockchain designs.
Recognition: Supported by the Ethereum Foundation and leading VCs.
This positions Orochi not just as another zkDA Layer, but as the audit-grade infrastructure for the next financial era.
Future Outlook The Ethereum ecosystem will continue to dominate liquidity for stablecoins and RWAs. But as adoption accelerates, infrastructure like zkDatabase becomes non-negotiable:
Compliance-first institutions will require provable audit trails.
Cross-border finance will demand blockchain interoperability.
DeFi protocols will compete on verifiable transparency, not just yield.
With zkDatabase, Orochi Network ensures that Ethereum’s stablecoin surge evolves into a sustainable RWA revolution.
Conclusion The surge of Ethereum’s stablecoins shows us the appetite for digital money and tokenized assets. But to scale from billions to trillions, the industry needs more than hype, it needs proof.
Orochi Network, powered by zkDatabase, provides that proof. By combining Zero-Knowledge Proofs, verifiable data pipelines, and blockchain-agnostic design, Orochi delivers the infrastructure for RWA tokenization, audit-grade, privacy-first, and scalable.
Developers and institutions exploring RWA and stablecoins - start building with zkDatabase. The future of tokenization runs on verifiable data. FAQs 1) What problem does Orochi’s zkDatabase solve for RWAs and stablecoins? Ethereum secures transactions but can’t verify off-chain data or provide audit-grade proofs. zkDatabase turns raw data into cryptographically provable, privacy-preserving records so issuers can prove reserves, compliance, and asset authenticity without exposing sensitive details.
2) How is Orochi different from DA solutions like Celestia, Avail, or EigenDA? Those focus on storing data; Orochi adds native Zero‑Knowledge proofs. Its Verifiable Data Pipeline, proof‑system agnostic design, DAG architecture, and Proof‑of‑Everything approach produce succinct, on-chain verifications rather than mere availability.
3) Who is using zkDatabase today and for what? Partners like Helix, Plume Network, Lumia, Welf Finance, and XDC Network use zkDatabase for tokenized Treasurys, fund reserve proofs, privacy‑first real estate tokenization, and compliant wealth management—demonstrating interoperable, audit‑grade RWA infrastructure across chains.
Arthur Hayes has said he has closed Maelstrom’s directional trading book, citing macroeconomic and geopolitical risks, as Lookonchain has reported $22.28 million in sales across Ethereum and six other tokens.
Summary
Arthur Hayes says he closed Maelstrom’s directional book amid macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty. Lookonchain reported $22.28 million in sales across ETH, ENA, UNI, ETHFI, AERO, PENDLE and ZAMA. Ethereum accounted for approximately 68% of the reported sales, totaling 6,400 ETH worth $15.2 million. Hayes plans to remain on the sidelines, reversing Maelstrom’s previously declared maximum-risk positioning. Lookonchain identified 6,400 ETH as the largest component of the transactions in an Oct. 24 post, valuing the Ethereum at $15.2 million. A subsequent post from the blockchain tracker shared Hayes’s statement that he had taken profits on ETH, ENA, UNI, and other tokens.
Arthur Hayes says macro risks drove his exit In his statement on X, the BitMEX co-founder described the positions as Maelstrom’s directional book and said he intended to wait before returning to the market.
“I think we gotta go down to go up.”
Hayes attributed his caution to conditions in “macro and geopolitical land,” without identifying a particular policy decision, conflict or economic release. He gave no price target for Bitcoin or Ethereum and did not set a date for rebuilding the positions.
His reference to the directional book limits the scope of the announcement. The statement did not provide a complete inventory of Maelstrom’s investments, remaining holdings, hedges, or private-market commitments. It did not separately identify a Bitcoin sale.
Although Hayes described the disposals as profit-taking, he did not publish acquisition prices or realized returns. Lookonchain’s dollar figures describe the reported value of the tokens involved, not the amount of profit earned.
Ethereum accounts for roughly 68% of the reported sales Beyond ETH, Lookonchain listed 14 million ENA worth $2.76 million and 323,000 UNI valued at $2.24 million. The tracker included 1.89 million ETHFI worth $1.23 million.
The smaller positions comprised 546,609 AERO valued at $398,000, 120,000 PENDLE worth $244,000 and 3 million ZAMA worth $214,000, according to its breakdown.
Adding the seven rounded valuations produces $22.286 million, close to the tracker’s $22.28 million headline figure. On that basis, Ethereum represented approximately 68.2% of the listed value, while the other six tokens accounted for $7.086 million.
ETH, ENA and UNI together represented $20.2 million, or roughly 90.6% of the listed total. The calculation uses Lookonchain’s rounded dollar amounts and does not establish exact execution proceeds or trading fees.
The posts did not provide a complete transaction-by-transaction account of execution venues or counterparties. Hayes’s statement supports his account of selling, but it does not independently reconcile every quantity in the tracker’s list with a completed trade.
Maelstrom previously declared maximum risk exposure The exit follows an earlier period when Hayes publicly backed aggressive exposure to crypto. As crypto.news previously reported on Aug. 25, he had described Maelstrom as being at maximum risk exposure, naming Bitcoin, Ether, Ethena and Ether.fi among its main positions.
The underlying essay, “Same Same But Different,” carries an Aug. 24 date on his Substack. Hayes argued that U.S. Treasury efforts to support the government bond market would create conditions favorable to Bitcoin and other crypto assets.
His argument centered on Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s approach to bond buybacks and dollar liquidity. Hayes expected volatility even if his bullish forecast proved correct, warning readers that an upward market could contain severe corrections.
The August coverage distinguished his interpretation from the Treasury’s stated purpose for buybacks, which was supporting market liquidity and managing cash. The operations were not equivalent to Federal Reserve quantitative easing.
Neither the August essay nor the Oct. 24 statement supplied audited portfolio records. The earlier declaration and latest exit describe Hayes’s stated positioning at different times; they do not establish the full sequence of Maelstrom’s trades between those dates.
Earlier Ethereum trades involved both buying and selling Hayes-linked wallet activity has previously included purchases followed by reported disposals within days. On June 15, Lookonchain identified a wallet possibly linked to him that received 3,000 ETH worth $5.42 million from market maker Flowdesk.
The wallet attribution was qualified in the original report. A transfer from a market maker did not, by itself, provide a full record of the recipient’s other holdings or financing arrangements.
In the same June coverage, Hayes’s June 8 essay “Reality Test” was cited as disclosing sales of Hyperliquid, Near Protocol, Worldcoin and Zcash. He characterized those decisions as a defensive response to macro risks while retaining Bitcoin and Ethereum as core holdings at that time.
During the June 15 session, the same coverage identified another wallet, geministar.eth, as accumulating 21,136 ETH worth around $37 million from Binance. Ethereum had risen almost 6% over the preceding 24 hours and traded near $1,828 at the time of that report. Those prices and wallet movements refer to June and are not current market readings.
By June 19, Lookonchain had reported that he sold 6,000 ETH for approximately $10.14 million, at an average price of $1,690. The tracker estimated a loss of $606,000 after reporting purchases of roughly 5,900 ETH at an average price of $1,793 in the preceding days.
The June 19 tracking included buying by other investors. K3 Capital withdrew 10,000 ETH worth $16.9 million from Binance, while a wallet linked to entrepreneur Chun Wang acquired 7,650 ETH valued at nearly $12.9 million.
Initia, a Layer 1 blockchain and interwoven modular roll-up network, suffered a major security incident on 23rd October. An attacker allegedly exploited a vulnerability in its blockchain to create tokens without permission and withdraw real assets from cross-chain bridges.
According to the investigation, the attack began at 14:59:26 UTC when the exploiter used a single signed transaction to mint 2 million AUSD tokens out of thin air on Initia.
The transaction reportedly consumed 135,888 gas and called a ‘Move’ function directly, without requiring a cross-chain bridge message. So, instead of breaking the bridge’s security verification process directly, the attacker hacked a vulnerability in the token-minting mechanism.
All about Initia’s security incident The attacker didn’t stop there though. Instead, they exploited cross-chain infrastructure to convert these unauthorized tokens into real assets on Ethereum [ETH]. So, roughly 153 seconds after the initial mint, a valid LayerZero message enabled the release of 1.4 million AUSD from the Ethereum-side adapter.
At the same time, the attacker also withdrew 105 ETH from the native-ETH adapter and obtained 1.08 million USDC through Circle’s Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP). According to researchers, the attacker converted the funds into Ethereum through decentralized trading services, including 1inch and 0x.
Here, within approximately 7 minutes of the initial mint, around $2.65 million had reached Ethereum. The consolidated funds later amounted to 1,135.52 ETH, worth approximately $2.73 million, held in a newly created wallet.
This seemed to be very similar to September’s Liquid Network incident, where a software bug enabled the creation of unauthorized L-BTC and the withdrawal of real Bitcoin.
As expected, the incident forced Initia to halt its L1 blockchain and roll-ups. And yet, despite this rollercoaster, Initia’s token INIT was trading at $0.1484 at press time after a hike of 11.7% in the last 24 hours.
2026 has so far being a tricky year for security incidents like these. In fact, AMBCrypto’s recent report found that crypto security losses surged by 55% to $1.18 billion in Q3 2026, while reported incidents jumped from 67 to 107.
Final Summary Transaction reportedly consumed 135,888 gas and called a ‘Move’ function directly, without requiring a cross-chain bridge message. This was very similar to September’s Liquid Network incident, where a software bug enabled the creation of unauthorized L-BTC and the withdrawal of real Bitcoin.
Ascend Markets, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of PSG Digital Labs, Inc. (“Ascend”), and M1X Global today announced the successful completion of the first institutional repurchase agreement (repo) on the Stellar network. The transaction utilized USDM1, a US dollar-denominated sovereign bond issued natively onchain and secured 1:1 by short-duration US Treasuries, and marks a milestone in bringing institutional secured financing onto the Stellar network, one of the longest-running public blockchains, expanding the network’s established payments and transfer infrastructure into programmable repo markets.
Executed through Ascend’s institutional credit facility using the Stellar network’s smart contracts, the repo included 72 consecutive programmatic hourly rolls between October 16 and 19, including overnight and weekend financing without manual intervention. The transaction was priced at SOFR plus 10 basis points, equivalent to an annualized financing rate of 3.98%, with interest accruing daily, a 2% collateral haircut and a maximum loan-to-value ratio of 98%. The repo concluded with repayment and return of USDM1 collateral, with all aspects of the closing process completing successfully. The trade is a demonstration of the capital efficiency of tokenized sovereign collateral and Ascend’s support for the asset class.
The first institutional repo transaction combined several important institutional financing capabilities on the Stellar network. These included continuous repo financing under an executed and enforceable master repurchase documentation, and the Stellar network’s smart contracts supporting pledging, financing, automated rolls, repayment and collateral release. The Repo trade was the first to use Chainlinks new Data Feeds for USDC on Stellar network as its price Oracle and USDM1’s published par redemption value supported collateral valuation, while Ascend’s infrastructure incorporated identity, access permissions, compliance rules, and operational controls.
The transaction used Stellar Asset Contract (SAC) tokens for both legs and demonstrated institutional financing functionality directly on Stellar Mainnet. The aggregate network fees on the Stellar network for the automated hourly rolls added up to a fraction of a cent.
Repos are foundational to global capital markets, supporting trillions of dollars in daily financing activity. Banks, broker-dealers, trading firms, and investment funds rely on repo to finance securities positions, fund inventory, mobilize collateral, and manage balance-sheet exposures. Roughly 80% of global repo is collateralized by sovereign bonds.
Traditional repo infrastructure operates within established banking, custody and settlement workflows which limits institutional flexibility in managing collateral, and constrains collateral movement outside business hours. The Ascend-M1X Global transaction demonstrates how secured sovereign debt can be financed, repurchased and mobilized continuously on public blockchain infrastructure, combining conventional repo economics - including benchmark-linked financing rates, collateral haircuts and established contractual protections - with automated execution, settlement and collateral management.
Dennis O’Connell, Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder, Ascend and President of ERC-3643 Association, said “Repo is fundamental to institutional capital markets, yet much of the infrastructure supporting it remains constrained by traditional settlement windows. Together with M1X Global, we have demonstrated that repo financing can operate continuously on the Stellar blockchain while preserving the legal protections, compliance controls and financing mechanics that financial institutions require. Accomplishing this trade with transaction-based fees attributable to Ascend’s U.S. broker-dealer subsidiary, together with executed SIFMA Repo Agreements, USDC as settlement, and real sovereign debt during off hours as the first ever institutional repo transaction on the Stellar network, is a tremendous milestone.”
Jordan Goldman, President and Chief Operating Officer, M1X Global, said “The ability to finance and mobilize collateral is fundamental to how modern capital markets function. By combining secured sovereign debt with programmable repo infrastructure on the Stellar network, institutions have the ability to mobilize the same collateral more efficiently and support more financing activity with a given collateral pool. These transactions demonstrate how blockchain infrastructure and continuous digital markets can expand the capabilities of institutional secured financing.”
USDM1 is a US dollar-denominated sovereign bond issued natively onchain by the Republic of the Marshall Islands under New York law. Structured in the tradition of fully collateralized Brady bonds, it is secured 1:1 by short-duration US Treasury instruments held in a bankruptcy-remote structure. It is compatible with ISDA, GMRA, GMLSA agreements for derivatives, repo and securities lending. Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP advised as issuer’s counsel. Its integration into Ascend's financing facility demonstrates how established institutional financing arrangements can be seamlessly extended into continuously operating blockchain networks.
The first completed institutional repo on the Stellar network establishes an operational foundation for additional institutional repo and secured financing activity. In combining natively-issued secured sovereign debt, institutional custody, enforceable repo documentation, programmable collateral controls and continuous settlement, the breakthrough transaction enables institutional financing markets in which collateral can be mobilized, financed and redeployed around the clock, rather than being limited by conventional settlement windows.
About Ascend
Ascend is a U.S. based technology and financial holding company, integrating a proprietary infrastructure of regulated U.S. broker-dealer licenses and prime-brokerage technology for digital securities. Ascend is thus constructed as a one-stop regulatory and technical solution for institutional financing for securities lending, repurchase, swaps, and collateral upgrade. Its protocol acts as the neutral tri-party agent and is implemented in both Stellar and EVM networks based on the principles of the ERC-3643/ SEP-57 standards for digital securities. Learn more at ascend.gl.
Ascend was conceived in response to the SEC’s Project Crypto announcement and Chairman Paul Atkins’ call for the development of the next generation of onchain U.S. Capital Markets infrastructure and today announces the first realization of that mandate by providing U.S. markets by providing the first onchain credit facility for collateral mobility and lending of digital securities, purpose built to operate in consonance with existing securities laws.
Ascend was the first to present a Digital Tri-Party Solution to the SEC Crypto Task Force on September 18, 2026. The presentation highlighted this trade and Ascend’s novel reuse of ERC-3643/SEP-57 to achieve a complete, native integration of applicable securities and BSA/AML regulatory requirements, including Identity, Access Controls, Compliance Rules, and Operational Controls, in an onchain credit facility.
Ascend is committed to advancing regulated, transparent, and resilient market infrastructure that encourages onshore capital markets issuance and enhanced liquidity through onchain solutions that are executed within the securities regulatory framework - an approach that is critical to ensuring continued global trust in the U.S. as a leader in global finance.
About USDM1
USDM1 is a fully collateralized, USD-denominated sovereign bond natively issued onchain. It is structured in the style of a Brady bond under New York law, with an explicit customary waiver of sovereign immunity, and secured on a 1:1 basis by short-duration US Treasury instruments pledged to a US trust company in a bankruptcy-remote structure. It is compatible with ISDA, GMRA, GMLSA agreements for derivatives, repo and securities lending. Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP serves as issuer’s counsel. It is issued by the Republic of the Marshall Islands, which operates exclusively on the US dollar standard under its Compact of Free Association with the United States.
About M1X Global
M1X Global is a sovereign financial infrastructure and technology company bridging public finance and onchain capital markets. Operating in public-private partnership with the Republic of the Marshall Islands, M1X Global coordinates the legal, compliance, technology, custody and institutional infrastructure behind sovereign digital instruments. M1X Global is a member of the DTC Digital Assets Solution Industry Working Group created to advance tokenization and digital assets.
Disclaimer
The content of this communication is for informational purposes only and is not intended to market, offer, or solicit you to buy or sell USDM1 or any financial product directly from Ascend Markets, PSG Digital Labs, M1X Global, the Republic of the Marshall Islands or otherwise. USDM1 is being offered and sold solely outside the United States in reliance on Regulation S under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "Securities Act"). The Republic of the Marshall Islands has not registered any offering of USDM1 under the Securities Act, or any other US federal and state securities laws. Accordingly, USDM1 may not be offered, sold, pledged or otherwise transferred in the United States or to, or for the account or benefit of, US Persons (as defined in Regulation S), unless they are registered, or exempt from, or not subject to, registration under the Securities Act.
Nothing in this communication constitutes, or should be construed as, a recommendation by Ascend Markets, PSG Digital Labs, M1X Global, the Republic of the Marshall Islands or any third party to acquire or dispose of USDM1 or any other security, or to engage in any investment strategy or transaction.
Forward-Looking Statements
This release contains forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are not historical facts. Words such as anticipates, believes, estimates, expects, intends, plans, will and similar expressions are intended to identify them. Statements regarding trends relating to USDM1, and future expansions or projects relating to USDM1, are examples of forward-looking statements. Such statements reflect current views and are subject to risks and uncertainties, and rest on assumptions including general economic and market conditions, industry conditions and operating factors. There is no guarantee that the expected events or results will occur, and any change in those assumptions could cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations.
Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.
Disclosure. PANews may publish sponsored content, partner content, advertisements, affiliate links, event promotions, and market commentary involving Web3 projects, service providers, or financial products. PANews personnel, contributors, or affiliates may hold digital assets or other interests related to covered topics. See our Terms of Service.
Analyst: Bitcoin has seen notable pullbacks in every prior U.S. midterm election cycle, and its key support level of $73,000 requires close attention.
Crypto analyst Ali Charts wrote in a post that as the November 3 US midterm elections approach, investors may overlook the recurring Bitcoin pullbacks seen in previous election cycles. He believes this election could again bring significant volatility, with downside risks worth noting, and his key support level to watch is $73,000. According to his statistics, Bitcoin saw pullbacks of 72%, 65%, 52%, and 27% during the US midterm election cycles in 2010, 2014, 2018, and 2022 respectively. However, he emphasized that correlation does not equal causation; the elections themselves may not be the cause of the drops, and these pullbacks are also influenced by Bitcoin’s overall market cycle, liquidity conditions, and investor sentiment.
Q4 returns show a similar pattern: Bitcoin fell 16.70%, 42.16%, and 14.75% in Q4 of 2014, 2018, and 2022 respectively. The only exception was 2010, when it rose 391%—though Bitcoin was still in its early stages back then. As a result, three of the past four midterm election years saw negative Q4 returns.
Regarding future price action, Ali Charts noted that the $73,000 level is near the average acquisition cost of Bitcoin’s current short-term holders, making it a key area to monitor the positioning of recent investors. He pointed out that in an established bull market, Bitcoin often finds support near the short-term holder average cost after a significant pullback. He believes that if selling pressure accelerates after the November 3 elections, pushing Bitcoin back toward $73,000, this zone will be a critical level to test whether buyers are still willing to uphold the overall bullish trend. If prices rebound sustainably from this area, it will reinforce the bullish thesis. For trading, he will wait for signs of selling pressure drying up and demand reemerging before considering opening long positions.
23 minutes ago
SpaceX’s $40 billion off-balance-sheet debt financing is facing pressure on pricing negotiations amid turmoil in the AI market.
According to Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter, SpaceX is negotiating a $40 billion off-balance-sheet debt financing plan, which would use a special purpose vehicle (SPV) to purchase Nvidia chips to support its AI business expansion. The structure is designed to keep the related liabilities off SpaceX’s balance sheet, preserving its investment-grade credit rating. However, recent turmoil in the AI sector has pushed up industry borrowing costs, complicating pricing negotiations. Banks led by Goldman Sachs are discussing the plan with investors led by Apollo; Apollo-backed Atlas SP would manage the entity, with Pimco also considering participation.
Previously, yields on some subordinated debt were discussed in the mid-8% to 9% range, but recent volatility has prompted investors to reevaluate pricing, and the two sides remain in talks. SpaceX’s financial filings this week also revealed that last year, xAI had attempted to raise up to $20 billion in off-balance-sheet debt via a sale-leaseback arrangement with Valor Equity Partners. Auditors classified the deal as a “failed sale-leaseback arrangement”, leading SpaceX to eventually record roughly $13 billion of the sum as its own debt. The proposed structure aims to avoid a repeat of that outcome.
23 minutes ago
South Korean stock market's retail war chest shrank by 36.5%; retail investors continued net buying, but capital replenishment has slowed.
Data from Korea Financial Investment Association shows that as of October 22, investor deposits at South Korean securities firms fell to 88.68 trillion won, a drop of around 51 trillion won from the all-time high of 139.69 trillion won recorded on June 4, representing a 36.5% decline and returning to levels seen at the start of the year. The balance dipped below 90 trillion won on October 21, marking the first such drop in nearly nine months.
Investor deposits refer to funds held in securities firm accounts that have not yet been used to purchase assets such as stocks, and are typically viewed as potential buying power. The decline in the balance can stem from either stock purchases or fund withdrawals, so the full drop cannot be equated to capital exiting the stock market.
Retail investors continue to make net purchases. Between June 4 and October 23, individual investors bought a net 44.17 trillion won in the KOSPI market and 3.15 trillion won in the KOSDAQ market, while net purchases of ETFs over the same period reached 28.25 trillion won. The report notes that unlike the first half of the year, where new capital inflows exceeded stock purchases, the pace of capital replenishment in the second half has lagged behind outflows, leading to the continuous decline in deposit balances.
The KOSPI index closed at 5550.30 points on October 23, having fallen nearly 20% over the past month. A securities industry official said the recent decline is indeed excessive relative to earnings fundamentals, but the AI sector, which previously drove gains, still faces credit risk concerns, making it too early to expect a sustained rebound.
23 minutes ago
Renowned Trader: Bitcoin Should Add Positions Instead of Panicking When It Hits $80,000 'Buy Zone'
Renowned crypto trader Doctor Profit stated in a post that every time Bitcoin hits its "buy zone", it is an opportune moment to add to existing long positions, and he is currently executing this strategy. His accompanying chart labels the area near $80,000 as the "buy zone", emphasizing: "This zone is for buying, not panicking."
23 minutes ago
AI computing power expansion in the Gulf region faces communication risks due to Iran's threats to attack undersea fiber-optic cables.
Two senior Iranian security officials have revealed that Iran has drawn up plans to strike submarine communications cables in the Gulf if the U.S. and Israel launch another attack; one official added that they will also block repairs to extend the communication outage. Officials from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) had previously threatened to target seven major undersea internet cables beneath the Strait of Hormuz if Iran’s infrastructure is attacked. These threats have introduced new communication risks to cloud computing and AI infrastructure in the Gulf region. Reuters reported that past attacks by Iran hit two Amazon Web Services (AWS) facilities in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and damaged infrastructure near an AWS facility in Bahrain. Analysts noted that simultaneous damage to multiple cables could disrupt financial transactions, e-commerce, and cloud services, though the actual impact depends on traffic rerouting capabilities and backup line capacity. International bandwidth passing through the Strait of Hormuz accounts for less than 1% of the global total, so the direct impact on global communications may be limited. Microsoft plans to invest over $10 billion in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Kuwait by 2030, and allocate more than $400 million to improve submarine and terrestrial network connections in the Middle East, to enhance the resilience of its digital infrastructure.
23 minutes ago
This week, U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded net inflows of $301.2 million, with BlackRock’s IBIT alone attracting $565.7 million in inflows.
According to Farside's monitoring, net inflows into U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs totaled $301.2 million this week. The breakdown is as follows: BlackRock’s IBIT saw a net inflow of $565.7 million; FBTC recorded a net outflow of $116.6 million; BITB posted a net outflow of $18.5 million; ARKB had a net outflow of $99.6 million; EZBC notched a net inflow of $7.3 million; MSBT saw a net inflow of $6.5 million; GBTC registered a net outflow of $51.8 million; and BTC recorded a net inflow of $8.2 million.
