Kinexys, JPMorgan’s blockchain platform, has brought its bank deposit token to the Ethereum (ETH) mainnet for institutional clients.
Oli Harris, global head of Kinexys, announced the expansion of JPM Coin (JPMD) on LinkedIn on Monday morning.
“More institutions are moving on chain and we want our clients to have USD deposit liquidity wherever they’re operating. A lot of that activity is on Ethereum, so it was the natural place to go next.”
JPM Coin is a bank-issued digital representation of a commercial bank deposit held in JPMorgan accounts. The funds backing the token never leave the banking giant’s regulated infrastructure.
The mainnet expansion follows JPM Coin’s launch on Base, an Ethereum layer-2 blockchain built within the crypto exchange Coinbase, late last year.
In December, the banking giant also launched MONY, a tokenized money market fund powered by Ethereum. The fund targets qualified investors, offering U.S. dollar yields, and it invests solely in U.S. Treasury securities and repurchase agreements backed by them. JPMorgan launched a second tokenized money market fund, JLTXX, on Ethereum in May.
In August, JPMorgan noted that more than $4 trillion in payments had been processed on Kinexys since the platform’s inception, with an average of $7 billion transacted on a daily basis.
Ethereum traders are buying insurance, and they are paying a premium for it.
On October 19, 2026, ETH options markets showed a clear downside skew. Short-dated puts traded at a meaningful premium to calls, which signals that traders are more worried about a drop than excited about a rally.
ETH has slipped roughly 8% over the past month while Bitcoin quietly held its ground, gaining 1.5% over the same stretch.
What the options market is saying Data from Block Scholes showed seven-day ETH puts trading at an implied volatility premium of up to 8 percentage points over calls.
The 1-week 25-delta skew for ETH stood at +7.4 vol points, sitting at the 11th percentile. The 25-delta skew compares the price of puts and calls that are similarly far from the current price. A positive reading means puts are richer, so traders are leaning defensive.
ETH’s 7-day implied volatility climbed nearly 10 points, a sign that tension is building in the near-term contracts.
Further out on the curve, the tone softens but does not flip. The 30-day 25-delta skew came in at +3.1 vol points. Puts are still favored on a monthly view, just with less urgency than in the one-week window.
A tale of two assets Bitcoin has held a range between $80,000 and $84,000. ETH, by contrast, has been referenced around $2,400 in spot trading.
Both assets have seen their put-call skews widen since early October. A decline in AI and tech equities has weighed on sentiment, and that caution has spilled into crypto. ETH has taken the bigger hit, while Bitcoin has mostly shrugged.
Calls still dominate open interest Despite the defensive skew, ETH options open interest remains heavily tilted toward calls. Calls make up approximately 63% of open interest, with puts at roughly 37%. Total open interest for ETH options was approximately $6.09 billion.
The call wall sits at $2,600, while the put wall rests at $2,300. With spot near $2,400, ETH is trading between those two markers, closer to the put side than the call side.
What this means for traders For anyone using options to hedge, the cost of that hedge has gone up. Buying short-dated puts now means paying a premium compared with a few weeks ago. Selling puts, on the other hand, pays more, though it comes with the obvious risk of being on the hook if prices fall.
The $2,300 put wall is the level many traders will likely have circled. A move toward that zone would test whether the defensive positioning was prescient or simply expensive peace of mind.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Vivian Nguyen. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
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.
As NVIDIA GTC draws near, a large crypto whale has opened a new short position worth $12.61 million in NVDA.
Nvidia’s GTC Berlin conference will be held from October 20 to 22. Jensen Huang is scheduled to deliver a keynote speech from 17:00 to 19:00 Beijing time. Earlier, Nvidia announced plans to invest in four German startups as part of its nearly $10 billion European investment commitment. According to TradingBeats’ monitoring, against this backdrop, a crypto whale opened a large short position with an average entry price of $218.078. The current position is valued at approximately $12.61 million, with an unrealized profit of around $86,600 (0x4e23).
7 minutes ago
The French Prime Minister: Curfews will be imposed wherever necessary tonight.
French Prime Minister stated that a curfew will be implemented tonight wherever necessary, in response to recent riots across various regions.
7 minutes ago
Bitcoin's volatility has contracted to an extreme level unseen in nearly two and a half years, and the cryptocurrency is poised for sharp price swings.
According to Barchart, Bitcoin's daily Bollinger Bands have formed one of the narrowest widths in the past two and a half years. This indicates Bitcoin is in a "consolidation tightening" phase, possibly preparing for a major price move. BlockBeats Note: Bollinger Bands are a commonly used technical analysis indicator consisting of three lines: the middle band, typically a 20-day simple moving average (SMA); the upper band (middle band + 2 times standard deviation); the lower band (middle band - 2 times standard deviation). Historical experience shows that after Bollinger Bands tighten significantly, a directional breakout (either upward or downward) often follows. It is common for volatility to expand suddenly from an extremely low state.
7 minutes ago
Morgan Stanley raises Amazon’s price target and designates it as a top pick, while two crypto whales simultaneously opened new long positions worth $3.84 million.
Morgan Stanley analyst Brian Nowak raised Amazon (AMZN)’s price target from $335 to $350, maintained an “Overweight” rating, and named it a top pick in the firm’s coverage universe. Morgan Stanley noted that Amazon Web Services (AWS)’ growth potential and profit margins have not been fully recognized, projecting AWS revenue will rise 47% in 2027 and 42% in 2028, and forecasting Amazon’s 2028 earnings per share (EPS) at roughly $16.50. All figures are firm projections. Per TradingBeats monitoring, as of press time, the AMZN perpetual contract on Hyperliquid trades at $263.36, up approximately 4.01% over the past 24 hours, with a trading volume of around $26.17 million. Over the same period, the notional value of open interest increased by roughly $3.28 million, a 12.53% rise; excluding price fluctuations, the estimated number of positions still grew by about 8.16%. Against this backdrop, at least two large crypto whales opened new million-dollar long positions overnight. One account purchased 4,641.043 contracts at 22:47, with a trading volume of ~$1.2129 million at an average price of $261.337 (0x30af); another account bought 10,000 contracts between 23:06 and 23:17, with a trading volume of ~$2.6239 million at an average price of $262.389 (0xcb58). The two new long positions totaled ~$3.8368 million in trading volume, with a weighted average entry price of ~$262.06.
7 minutes ago
GitHub public repositories now require identity verification: a surge in bot traffic is disrupting regular CI workflows.
Beating AI News Flash: On October 19, GitHub announced it will temporarily add authentication to HTTPS download requests for some public repositories. Once the system detects abnormal traffic, code that previously could be cloned or fetched without logging in may suddenly require a token. CI builds and automatic installation scripts relying on anonymous downloads may also be disrupted. A similar issue emerged in September. On September 2, a developer reported in the GitHub Community that their CI server repeatedly received 401 errors when fetching the MariaDB public repository, and even submodule updates could not be completed. The developer of AMP, a game server management tool, also noted that a large number of users' installation processes were affected, forcing the team to consider urgent program modifications. At that time, GitHub explained that the platform was facing growing bot traffic, which could lead to misclassification of legitimate development requests. The latest announcement further clarifies the scope of the temporary authentication measure. GitHub advises developers to configure authentication for automated tasks and avoid relying on anonymous HTTPS fetching. Authenticated HTTPS and SSH operations are not subject to this restriction.
7 minutes ago
Lighter Core Launches Binary Options Products
Decentralized exchange Lighter tweeted that its Lighter Core has launched binary options products, with plans to roll out a full options trading service next.
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.
Ethereum is scheduled to activate the Glamsterdam upgrade on the Hoodi testnet on October 26, as reported by WuBlockchain. This upgrade will increase the testnet’s gas limit to 200 million. The Glamsterdam protocol upgrade, previously implemented on the Sepolia testnet, involves updates to gas pricing for state-creation and state-access, along with broader execution and block-accounting changes. While the testnet change is confirmed, no mainnet activation date has been announced.
Key Takeaways
The announcement of the Glamsterdam upgrade on the Hoodi testnet is consistent with support for improved network efficiency and scalability.
Market pricing suggests a moderate impact on Ethereum’s price, as the upgrade is still confined to a testnet environment.
The absence of a mainnet activation timeline may indicate that market participants are waiting for further developments before adjusting their price expectations.
What to Watch
Market participants will closely monitor the Hoodi testnet for any technical issues or bugs that could affect the upgrade’s success. Confirmation of a mainnet activation date for Glamsterdam could lead to increased activity and potentially higher price expectations for Ethereum. Additionally, any public statements from the Ethereum Foundation regarding roadmap acceleration could influence market sentiment.
Ethereum developers have scheduled the Glamsterdam upgrade for the Hoodi testnet on October 26 at 17:42:48 UTC, with Hoodi's gas limit set to rise to 200 million.
Ethereum (@ethereum) developers have scheduled the Glamsterdam upgrade for the Hoodi testnet on October 26. Activation is set for 17:42:48 UTC, and the test will raise Hoodi's gas limit to 200 million.
Glamsterdam includes changes to block production, transaction processing and gas accounting. The upgrade already activated on the Sepolia testnet on October 6. No mainnet date has been set.
What the Hoodi test involvesThe Ethereum Foundation announced the Hoodi schedule on October 16, according to reports by PANews and The Currency Analytics. PANews said Hoodi's block gas limit will rise to 200 million at activation, and that node operators need to update their execution layer and consensus layer clients before the fork.
Glamsterdam's two headline changes are enshrined proposer-builder separation (ePBS) and block-level access lists. CoinMarketCap Academy described the upgrade as bringing ePBS, block-level access lists and new gas pricing to Ethereum's base layer. ePBS is set out in EIP-7732 and moves the relationship between block proposers and builders into the consensus protocol. Block-level access lists, defined in EIP-7928, let clients read state and validate transactions in parallel.
The 200 million gas figure applies to the test network only. Crypto outlet CryptBull noted that a 200-million gas limit on a test network is an engineering milestone, not a promise that mainnet capacity will quadruple. Mainnet users have no action to take for now.
What comes next for $ETHSepolia went first, and Hoodi gives developers a second public environment to check client behavior and the new gas rules. CoinDesk reported that the next test will evaluate block production, state access and gas changes together, after which client teams will decide on a mainnet date. The Ethereum Foundation has cautioned that a testnet activation does not confirm a mainnet timeline.
Application developers should also test their contracts against the revised gas pricing, according to TechFlow's summary of the Foundation's Sepolia announcement.
Sources:
PANews: Glamsterdam set to activate on Hoodi testnet
CoinMarketCap Academy: Glamsterdam goes live on Sepolia
The Currency Analytics: Hoodi 200 million gas test
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.
According to monitoring by Farside Investors, U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs posted a net inflow of $526.7 million yesterday: IBIT recorded a net inflow of $665.2 million, while FBTC saw a net outflow of $83.6 million. For Ethereum ETFs, net outflows totaled $103.3 million, with ETHA logging a net outflow of $95.4 million.
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.
Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson says he is personally developing a new programming language for the blockchain. In an October 18 post on X, he said he was working with a developer to build it.
According to him, the proposed tool would help applications carry out users’ requests and provide evidence that the required conditions were followed. That could give Cardano developers another way to build applications, although Hoskinson’s post offered no release date.
What would the new language do?
Hoskinson described the language as supporting “intents and PCD via Groth16 proofs,” calling it the first of its kind.
So, for example, someone swapping tokens could specify the minimum amount they want to receive. Software would handle the steps needed to complete the request while making sure the conditions are met.
The proof component would provide mathematical evidence that the relevant rules were satisfied.
Cardano already has programming tools, including Aiken, which developers use to create smart contracts. Aiken’s official documentation describes an existing language and toolkit, so what this means is that Hoskinson’s project would add another development option.
The announcement leaves important questions open
Hoskinson did not include a name, technical specification, or code link in his reply. So, it is not yet known how his proposal would work or fit alongside existing tools.
Source: X
His earlier October 17 post described a Midnight concept as the “magnum opus” of his career. He announced the Cardano language in a subsequent reply, but did not explicitly say that the two were the same project.
ADA remains under pressure near $0.217
ADA traded around $0.2173 at the time of this writing, down 1.76% in the ongoing session.
It had fallen from the high $0.28 price level it hit earlier in the month. The recent rebounds it experienced have not been able to reverse that decline, which leaves the price close to its latest lows.
Source: TradingView
The $0.21 area was the nearest zone to watch for buyers who want to get some of it. If it is able to remain above $0.23, it would mean a stronger sign of recovery.
Final Summary
Hoskinson says he is developing a new Cardano programming language, with no release date provided.
ADA traded near $0.2173, with $0.21 and $0.23 the nearby levels to watch.
Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino suggests Senator Richard Blumenthal was fair in his probe of Iran transactions. (Helene Braun/CoinDesk)Summary
Tether CEO Paulo Ardoino posted on X that his company is often way ahead of government sanctions when it freezes suspicious transactions — a point he contends a recent report from Senate Democrats ignored.He said he's confident Tether is "doing the right thing."Tether is answering back against a report issued last month by Democrats on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations that had accused the stablecoin firm of providing "a significant financial lifeline within Iran's shadow banking network," with Tether CEO Paulo Ardoino saying Monday that the probe missed the positive work it's doing to observe sanctions.
Senator Richard Blumenthal, the subcommittee's top Democrat, led the effort, which further highlighted Democratic lawmakers' concerns that crypto is used to support illicit finance. But Ardoino contends that Tether freezes suspicious transactions well before entities such as the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control and Israel's National Bureau for Counter Terror Financing formally flag them.
"Senator Blumenthal's 'analysis' of Tether's sanctions report misses that, since 2023, Tether froze on average 4 weeks prior to OFAC & NBCTF official sanction designation and for 99% of the times Tether froze the reported addresses before Chainalysis labelled them," Ardoino wrote in a post on social media site X.
Ardoino went on to argue that the company's actions "led to Iran-linked stablecoin volumes declining by 94%."
Tether's CEO also spoke remotely at a Washington event, DC Fintech Week, and addressed the senator's report there, as well, last Tuesday. He criticized how it was released to the media before his company could review it.
"I believe it's important for the public also to hear our side of the story," he said.
"Our aim is to push out the bad actors from USDT," Ardoino said. "Those bad actors are moving to other means that are outside of the control of the United States, and now outside of our control."
He added that the work "is not finished," but he said he's happy with Tether's role.
"I wake up in the morning and I look at myself in the mirror, and I know that we're doing the right thing," he said.
The Senate report went back a number of years, focusing in part on the period before 2024 in which it said Tether didn't comprehensively freeze flagged wallets. "This absence of deterrence invited abuse: Terrorist organizations such as Hamas shifted from transacting in bitcoin and a mix of cryptocurrencies to promoting USDT," it said.
Since the report, Blumenthal has additionally been probing the relationship between Tether and its U.S. financial partner, Cantor Fitzgerald, which has close ties to the administration of President Donald Trump. Tether also named Bo Hines, Trump's former White House crypto adviser, as the CEO of its U.S. division last fall.
In recent weeks, the odds that Democrats — including Blumenthal — may return to the majority in the Senate have been climbing, according to prediction market Kalshi. If that happens, Blumenthal could have significantly increased powers to investigate crypto matters.
Read More: Tether's $344 million USDT freeze linked to U.S. 'Economic Fury' against Iran regime
Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino says his company’s address freezes have cut Iran-linked stablecoin transaction volumes by 94% since 2023.
The timing matters. A Senate report recently named Tether’s USDT as the stablecoin of choice for sanctioned Iran-linked wallets, and Ardoino’s response amounts to this: yes, they used our token, and we are the reason they are using it a lot less.
What Tether is claiming Ardoino made the announcement on October 19, 2026. He framed the drop as the result of a proactive compliance strategy, not a reactive one.
His central argument concerns timing. According to Ardoino, Tether froze relevant addresses an average of four weeks before official sanctions arrived from the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and Israel’s NBCTF.
The company also put a dollar figure on its efforts. Tether disclosed that it blocked approximately $550 million in USDT linked to Iran over the course of 2026.
Most of that came in two large batches. Freezes in April and July together accounted for over $470 million of the total.
Third-party data points in the same direction. Figures from TRM Labs show USDT’s share of on-chain volume in Iran-attributed wallets fell from 67% in 2025 to 14% in August 2026.
The Senate report that set this off Ardoino’s comments were a response to a Senate report published on September 28, 2026. The findings were presented by Senator Richard Blumenthal.
The report analyzed 846 sanctioned wallets with Iranian links. Of those, 84% predominantly used Tether’s USDT.
That statistic did not sit quietly. The findings prompted calls for investigations into whether Tether has complied with sanctions and anti-money laundering rules.
Ardoino’s answer reframes the same facts. If USDT was the most-used token among these wallets, he argues, Tether was also the party best positioned to shut that activity down, and it did.
Why the ability to freeze matters Think of USDT less like cash and more like a gift card the issuer can deactivate. Once Tether flags an address, the tokens sitting in it stop moving.
The four-week lead time is Ardoino’s strongest card. A company that waits for OFAC to publish a list is following the rules. A company that acts before the list exists is making its own calls about who looks suspicious.
What this means for Tether and stablecoins For Tether, the immediate stakes are regulatory. The calls for investigation that followed Blumenthal’s report have not gone away simply because Ardoino published a strong number.
A 94% decline is a compelling headline figure, but it is Tether’s own claim about its own performance. Investigators will likely want to see how the figure was calculated, which wallets were counted, and what baseline from 2023 it measures against.
The TRM Labs data helps Tether’s case because it comes from an outside firm. Still, if USDT’s share dropped from 67% to 14%, the open question is where the remaining activity went, and the figures here do not answer it.
Tether’s strategy here is clear. Rather than dispute the Senate’s finding that USDT dominated sanctioned Iran-linked wallets, it is pointing to the freezes, the dollar totals, and the four-week lead as evidence that its controls work.
Disclosure: This article was edited by John Chen. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
As NVIDIA GTC draws near, a large crypto whale has opened a new short position worth $12.61 million in NVDA.
Nvidia’s GTC Berlin conference will be held from October 20 to 22. Jensen Huang is scheduled to deliver a keynote speech from 17:00 to 19:00 Beijing time. Earlier, Nvidia announced plans to invest in four German startups as part of its nearly $10 billion European investment commitment. According to TradingBeats’ monitoring, against this backdrop, a crypto whale opened a large short position with an average entry price of $218.078. The current position is valued at approximately $12.61 million, with an unrealized profit of around $86,600 (0x4e23).
2 minutes ago
The French Prime Minister: Curfews will be imposed wherever necessary tonight.
French Prime Minister stated that a curfew will be implemented tonight wherever necessary, in response to recent riots across various regions.
2 minutes ago
Bitcoin's volatility has contracted to an extreme level unseen in nearly two and a half years, and the cryptocurrency is poised for sharp price swings.
According to Barchart, Bitcoin's daily Bollinger Bands have formed one of the narrowest widths in the past two and a half years. This indicates Bitcoin is in a "consolidation tightening" phase, possibly preparing for a major price move.
BlockBeats Note: Bollinger Bands are a commonly used technical analysis indicator consisting of three lines: the middle band, typically a 20-day simple moving average (SMA); the upper band (middle band + 2 times standard deviation); the lower band (middle band - 2 times standard deviation). Historical experience shows that after Bollinger Bands tighten significantly, a directional breakout (either upward or downward) often follows. It is common for volatility to expand suddenly from an extremely low state.
2 minutes ago
Morgan Stanley raises Amazon’s price target and designates it as a top pick, while two crypto whales simultaneously opened new long positions worth $3.84 million.
Morgan Stanley analyst Brian Nowak raised Amazon (AMZN)’s price target from $335 to $350, maintained an “Overweight” rating, and named it a top pick in the firm’s coverage universe. Morgan Stanley noted that Amazon Web Services (AWS)’ growth potential and profit margins have not been fully recognized, projecting AWS revenue will rise 47% in 2027 and 42% in 2028, and forecasting Amazon’s 2028 earnings per share (EPS) at roughly $16.50. All figures are firm projections.
Per TradingBeats monitoring, as of press time, the AMZN perpetual contract on Hyperliquid trades at $263.36, up approximately 4.01% over the past 24 hours, with a trading volume of around $26.17 million. Over the same period, the notional value of open interest increased by roughly $3.28 million, a 12.53% rise; excluding price fluctuations, the estimated number of positions still grew by about 8.16%.
Against this backdrop, at least two large crypto whales opened new million-dollar long positions overnight. One account purchased 4,641.043 contracts at 22:47, with a trading volume of ~$1.2129 million at an average price of $261.337 (0x30af); another account bought 10,000 contracts between 23:06 and 23:17, with a trading volume of ~$2.6239 million at an average price of $262.389 (0xcb58). The two new long positions totaled ~$3.8368 million in trading volume, with a weighted average entry price of ~$262.06.
2 minutes ago
GitHub public repositories now require identity verification: a surge in bot traffic is disrupting regular CI workflows.
Beating AI News Flash: On October 19, GitHub announced it will temporarily add authentication to HTTPS download requests for some public repositories. Once the system detects abnormal traffic, code that previously could be cloned or fetched without logging in may suddenly require a token. CI builds and automatic installation scripts relying on anonymous downloads may also be disrupted. A similar issue emerged in September. On September 2, a developer reported in the GitHub Community that their CI server repeatedly received 401 errors when fetching the MariaDB public repository, and even submodule updates could not be completed. The developer of AMP, a game server management tool, also noted that a large number of users' installation processes were affected, forcing the team to consider urgent program modifications. At that time, GitHub explained that the platform was facing growing bot traffic, which could lead to misclassification of legitimate development requests. The latest announcement further clarifies the scope of the temporary authentication measure. GitHub advises developers to configure authentication for automated tasks and avoid relying on anonymous HTTPS fetching. Authenticated HTTPS and SSH operations are not subject to this restriction.
2 minutes ago
Lighter Core Launches Binary Options Products
Decentralized exchange Lighter tweeted that its Lighter Core has launched binary options products, with plans to roll out a full options trading service next.
Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said on Monday that the company's address freezes have driven a 94% decline in Iran-linked stablecoin volumes, in a post on X rebutting a Senate report that placed USDT at the centre of Iran's shadow banking network.
Ardoino wrote that Senator Richard Blumenthal's "analysis" of Tether's sanctions report "misses that, since 2023, Tether froze on average 4 weeks prior to OFAC & NBCTF official sanction designation and in 99% of these transactions, Tether froze the reported addresses before Chainalysis labelled them." Tether has not published the data behind the 94% figure or said what period the decline covers, what baseline it is measured against, or whether it counts USDT alone or all stablecoins, so the number cannot be independently checked.
The report, Tethered to Terrorism, was published on September 28 by Democratic staff of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. It analysed 846 wallets sanctioned or targeted for seizure over ties to Iran and its proxies between June 2021 and August 2026, and found that 84% transacted exclusively or nearly exclusively in USDT. Blumenthal, the subcommittee's ranking member, referred the findings to the Treasury and the Justice Department.
One case in the report sits awkwardly with the four-week claim. Israel's National Bureau for Counter Terror Financing designated 39 wallets tied to Hezbollah financier Tawfiq Muhammad Sa'id Al-Law in June 2023. Tether froze five of them and left the other 34 open until March 2024, shortly before OFAC sanctioned Al-Law, and more than $34.6 million in USDT left those wallets in the interim. The report credits Tether with responding to designations "in some instances" since late 2023 but calls the effort "uneven and inconsistent."
Tether's own disclosure, released the same day as the report, said it had supported freezes of nearly $550 million in Iran-linked USDT this year. That includes more than $344 million across two addresses in April, which TRM Labs identified as the first Central Bank of Iran wallets designated by OFAC, and more than $130 million across four wallets in July. The release does not itemise the remaining $76 million or so.
TRM puts Iranian crypto volume at about $11.4 billion in 2024 and $10 billion in 2025, a fall of roughly 12% in the wider market. A steep drop in USDT activity is consistent with that only if much of the flow moved to assets or venues that Tether cannot freeze.
USDT has a market capitalisation of about $183 billion, according to CoinGecko. The next test is whether the Treasury or the Justice Department acts on Blumenthal's referral. As of the report's publication, Tether had confirmed receipt of the subcommittee's June letter without responding to it.
TRON built its reputation moving digital dollars. Justin Sun now wants it to move stocks and Treasuries too.
Speaking at TOKEN2049 Singapore and related events in October 2026, the TRON founder laid out a plan to push the network past its role as a stablecoin pipeline. He said the expansion will go ahead without fresh guidance from Congress.
From USDT rails to tokenized assets
The centerpiece of the plan is tokenized real-world assets, or RWAs. Think of these as digital receipts on a blockchain that represent ownership of something off-chain, like a share of a company or a government bond.
Sun said TRON aims to bring tokenized equities and US Treasuries onto the network. The first step, according to the plan, is a launch of tokenized share offerings in Q4 2026.
The target audience is global, with a particular focus on Asia and emerging markets. These are users who want exposure to the US dollar and US assets but may prefer to get it through on-chain tools rather than a traditional brokerage account.
Sun also put a number on the opportunity. He projected that tokenized stocks could grow into a market exceeding $100 billion within five years.
Why Sun thinks TRON has a head start
The pitch rests on a simple argument: TRON already handles an enormous share of the world’s digital dollars, so adding other dollar-linked assets is a natural extension.
The numbers behind that argument are substantial. As of Q3 2026, USDT on TRON hit a record high of over $92.7 billion, representing more than 50% of the global USDT supply.
Settlement activity tells a similar story. As of September 2026, TRON settled approximately 73% of total stablecoin volume.
On the regulatory front, Sun pointed to existing supportive frameworks from agencies such as the CFTC and SEC as the footing for moving forward. His position is that those agency-level frameworks are enough to proceed, even without new legislation from Congress.
AI agents and post-quantum upgrades
The network is also working on AI agents that can carry out transactions autonomously. These are software programs that can act on a user’s behalf, such as executing payments or trades, without a human clicking every button.
TRON has implemented post-quantum signatures on its Nile testnet. The plan is to roll those post-quantum upgrades out to the TRON mainnet by the end of 2026.
What this means
For users in Asia and emerging markets, the appeal is access. A tokenized share could offer a path to US market exposure that bypasses some of the friction of traditional cross-border investing.
The biggest open question is regulatory. Sun is choosing to lean on existing agency frameworks rather than wait for Congress. Tokenized stocks also sit in a more sensitive category than stablecoins, touching on securities rules, investor protection and questions about who custodies the underlying shares.
Things to watch include whether the Q4 2026 tokenized share launch arrives on schedule, how regulators respond to TRON moving ahead without congressional action, and whether the post-quantum upgrade makes the jump from Nile testnet to mainnet by the end of 2026.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Vivian Nguyen. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
The market cap of tokenized stocks on BNB Chain climbed by $239.3 million over the past seven days.
BNB Chain pulls further ahead
Tokenized stocks are blockchain tokens built to track the price of traditional equities.
BNB Chain’s tokenized stock market cap reached approximately $1.5 billion as of mid-October 2026. The chain had already crossed $1 billion in tokenized stocks and ETFs by early October.
That puts BNB Chain at about 37.5% to 42.59% of the total tokenized stock market.
The total market across all chains has approached or reached $4 billion. That figure reflects an 831.8% increase year-over-year.
Ethereum holds approximately $730 million to $842 million in tokenized stocks, while Solana sits at roughly $490 million to $732 million.
The bStocks effect
Binance introduced its bStocks platform on June 11, 2026.
bStocks crossed $1 billion in assets under management by October 15, 2026.
Other issuers, including Ondo Global Markets and xStocks, have also contributed to the rapid expansion of the tokenized equity market.
About 1.8 million unique addresses held tokenized stocks on BNB Chain by late September 2026, representing a 45% share of all tokenized stock holders across chains.
Total on-chain transfer volume for tokenized equities exceeded $100 billion in the third quarter of 2026, with BNB Chain capturing the largest share.
From niche to multi-billion-dollar market
At the start of 2026, estimates for the total tokenized stock market ranged from $700 million to $965 million. By the end of October, the sector had expanded into the multiple billions.
What this means
BNB Chain’s lead appears tied closely to Binance’s ability to funnel its existing user base toward a new product, creating concentration risk given that a large portion of BNB Chain’s tokenized stock market depends on one platform.
The gap in market share estimates, from 37.5% to 42.59%, is a reminder that measuring this market is still imprecise, and headline figures should be read as approximations rather than precise readings.
Traders and investors following the space should track weekly market cap changes, holder counts, and transfer volumes together for a clearer view. A spike in market cap without matching growth in holders could signal concentration among a few large wallets; rising holders alongside rising volume would point to broader adoption.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Vivian Nguyen. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
BNB Chain wants your opinion on its next blockchain. The project has opened a dedicated community forum category for NewL1, a new Layer 1 network built for workloads that stretch beyond what BNB Smart Chain (BSC) can handle today.
The forum category first went live in July 2026. BNB Chain promoted it again on October 17 and 19, 2026, which means the conversation is heating up ahead of a planned testnet.
What NewL1 is supposed to do
NewL1 is a Layer 1, meaning it is a base blockchain with its own consensus and settlement. It is not a scaling add-on that sits on top of another chain.
It is also EVM-compatible. The Ethereum Virtual Machine is the software environment most smart contracts are written for. Compatibility means developers can bring existing code and tools over without starting from scratch.
The chain is aimed at three use cases: trading, payments and AI. The research specifically points to agentic AI trading, where software agents execute trades on their own rather than waiting for a human to click a button.
The performance targets are ambitious. BNB Chain is aiming for:
Sub-50 millisecond preconfirmations. A preconfirmation is an early signal that a transaction will be included, delivered before the block is fully settled.
More than 100,000 transactions per second. Throughput of that scale would let the network absorb heavy bursts of activity, the kind high-frequency trading and automated agents tend to generate.
Sub-second finality. Finality is the point at which a transaction can no longer be reversed.
No new token, and a feature aimed at front-runners
NewL1 does not plan to have a new token. The existing BNB token will serve as the sole gas token. Gas is the fee users pay to get transactions processed. So every transaction on NewL1 would be paid for in BNB.
The other headline feature is TxStream, a structure designed to reduce front-running risk. Front-running happens when someone sees your pending trade and jumps ahead of it to profit from the price move you were about to cause.
NewL1 is also slated to include privacy enhancements, which could further reduce how much information pending transactions leak to opportunistic actors.
A native bridge is planned to connect BSC and NewL1. That gives users and assets a built-in route between the two chains rather than relying on third-party bridging services.
The forum ground rules
The forum covers technical design questions, including tokenomics, consensus protocols and privacy features.
Tokenomics is an interesting item on the agenda for a chain that is not launching a token. The open question is how BNB itself will function in the new environment, which is a design problem even without a fresh asset.
BNB Chain has set ground rules to keep the discussion focused on technical development. Speculative price talk is off the table.
The timeline is relatively tight. A testnet is projected for late 2026, with mainnet expected in early 2027.
How BNB Chain got here
BNB Chain has grown into a multi-chain ecosystem anchored by BSC, known for low fees and a large amount of DeFi activity.
In 2023, the project launched opBNB, a Layer 2 scaling solution that sits on top of the main chain to handle extra transaction volume. NewL1 continues that expansion, but instead of scaling BSC, it builds a separate base layer tuned for specific tasks.
What this means
For BNB holders, the most concrete takeaway is the gas token decision. If NewL1 attracts trading, payments and AI activity, that usage would run on BNB rather than a competing asset.
The things to watch are the testnet launch in late 2026, early performance data against the sub-50 millisecond and sub-second finality goals, and how much of the forum feedback actually shows up in the final design.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Estefano Gomez. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
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.
According to official announcements, BNB Standard Corporation (BNC), the BNB treasury firm, has named Alex Odagiu as its new CEO. Public records show Odagiu joined YZi Labs in September 2021 as an investment manager, and was promoted to Investment Partner at the firm in September 2025. During his tenure at YZi Labs, he was primarily responsible for Web3-related investments spanning DeFi, payments, stablecoins, real-world assets (RWA), and AI-crypto intersections, served as a mentor and judge for the BNB Chain MVB Accelerator across 10 seasons, participated in the EASY Residency incubation program, and backed projects including Avalon, Aspecta, Canton, Hemi, Concrete, Mysten Labs, and Aptos. In June 2026, he was appointed Interim President and Director of BNB Standard Corporation, and officially took on the CEO role on October 19, 2026, resigning from all his positions at YZi Labs, including Investment Partner and his seat on the investment committee. This past June, YZi Labs and BNB treasury firm CEA Industries (now rebranded as BNC) reached an agreement to resolve governance disputes and jointly advance management adjustments.
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.
Data Feeds: a push modelChainlink Data Feeds provide reliable, decentralized market data for smart contracts that depend on consistently available onchain reference prices. By aggregating data through Chainlink oracle networks, Data Feeds reduce the need for developers to source, aggregate, and maintain their own pricing infrastructure.
On Stellar, a single proxy contract serves every feed. You don't need a separate address per asset, you pass a 32-byte data_id.
Mainnet proxy: CDQBHEUGLDHMSUHG4IH33RJBUTMNCZOT4JIAQR4WZFRDZW6DR6S32ZLZTestnet proxy: CBUF6IADAWPWIDWRTHJNINKXHG2UTIQ6TU2F2HRAXWAI7OT3KJPKK6O4Your contract reads a feed with one cross-contract call:
#[contractclient(name = "DataFeedsProxyClient")] pub trait DataFeedsProxy { fn latest_round(env: Env, data_id: BytesN<32>, decimals: u32) -> Result<Round, ProxyReadError>; } pub fn read_latest_price(env: Env, proxy: Address, data_id: BytesN<32>) -> I256 { let client = DataFeedsProxyClient::new(&env, &proxy); // The generated client returns the Round directly and panics on error; // use try_latest_round to handle ProxyReadError yourself. let round = client.latest_round(&data_id, &18); round.answer }Snippet adapted from Chainlink's Stellar Data Feeds guide, which has the full working example, including the Round and ProxyReadError types.
Each Round returns round_id, answer (an I256) and timestamp. Feeds are stored at 18 decimals. If you ask for fewer, the answer is truncated, not rounded, so factor that in.
💡 Tip: The sample returns the answer without looking at timestamp. In production, compare timestamp to the ledger time and reject prices older than the feed's heartbeat. That's 24 hours for the current Stellar feeds.
Data Streams: a pull modelWith Streams, nothing is written onchain until your application needs a price:
1. Offchain, you fetch a signed report from Chainlink's Data Streams API through REST, WebSocket, or the Go, TypeScript or Rust SDKs. It's a subscription product.
2. Onchain, a verifier contract checks the signatures. The mainnet verifier is CAKA3NBYPC6OBEUEGNIYGNYG3ES2GPQK736B5SR7ASGUXRDAKXI2JCQI. Its verify function parses the report, looks up the registered oracle configuration, recovers each signer via ECDSA, and requires exactly f+1 valid, unique signatures from registered oracles. It checks who signed a report, not how old it is, so decode the report's observationsTimestamp and expiresAt fields and enforce your own freshness rules.
3. Your contract consumes the verified bytes:
pub fn consume_price_data(env: Env, verifier_address: Address, signed_report: Bytes, sender: Address) -> Bytes { sender.require_auth(); let verifier = VerifierClient::new(&env, &verifier_address); // Verifies all ECDSA signatures and returns the decoded report data. let report_data = verifier.verify(&signed_report, &sender); // First 32 bytes are the feed_id; remaining fields are feed-specific. report_data }Snippet from Chainlink's Stellar Data Streams tutorial. Chainlink notes the example is unaudited.
Metric DEX has launched on BNB Chain, Ethereum and Robinhood Chain, using Chainlink Data Streams for oracle-based pricing instead of a traditional AMM model.
Metric, a decentralized exchange (DEX) built around oracle-based pricing, has gone live across @BNBChain, @Ethereum and @RobinhoodCrypto Chain. The platform uses @chainlink Data Streams for price data rather than relying only on the traditional automated market maker (AMM) model.
How Metric's pricing model worksMost AMMs set prices from the balance of assets inside their own liquidity pools. That design can leave liquidity providers exposed to arbitrage when pool prices lag the wider market. Metric takes a different route. According to Crypto Briefing, its DEX leans on external, verifiable price feeds instead of the internal state of liquidity pools to determine what an asset is worth.
Chainlink Data Streams uses a pull-based model. Crypto Briefing reports that price data is computed off-chain and delivered on demand with cryptographic proof. The same report says the setup also allows 24/7 trading of assets that normally move only during market hours, such as tokenized stocks and ETFs.
On BNB Chain, the focus is bStocks. Crypto Briefing reported that the BNB Chain launch landed on October 14, 2026, letting users trade and provide liquidity for bStocks, the BEP-20 tokens that represent US stocks and ETFs. The same contracts also run on Ethereum and Robinhood Chain.
Early traction and scaleMetric did not arrive from nowhere. Before its public DEX launch, the team reported more than $10 billion in cumulative trading volume, built while it operated in stealth across several chains, according to Crypto Briefing. Delphi Digital has also noted that aggregators route orders into Metric's pools, which helps explain how the platform handled large volume with a small capital base.
DefiLlama's Metric page lists total value locked (TVL) of about $3.98 million at the time of writing, alongside 30-day DEX volume of roughly $2.4 billion. TVL figures on the tracker move quickly and can differ from earlier snapshots, so readers should check the live dashboard for current numbers.
Metric remains small next to the largest DEXs by TVL, and the long-term test will be whether oracle-priced pools can keep attracting liquidity once launch interest fades. Still, the combination of external price feeds and 24/7 access to tokenized assets gives the project a clear angle in a growing part of DeFi. Traders interested in $LINK, $BNB and $ETH ecosystem activity may want to follow how it develops.
Sources:
Crypto Briefing: Metric launches new DEX with Chainlink Data Streams for pricingCrypto Briefing: BNB Chain users can now trade bStocks on Metric's new DEXDefiLlama: Metric TVL and volume
Every stablecoin yield product answers the same awkward question.Your USDC doesn’t appreciate. It’s engineered not to. So when a platform offers you 4%, 8%, or 20% on a dollar-pegged token, that money is coming from somewhere specific — and the “somewhere” is the only thing that matters.
Most comparison posts rank these by headline APY. That’s exactly backwards. A 12% yield funded by a sustainable market mechanism is a completely different product from a 12% yield funded by token emissions that run out in six months.
So this ranking does it the other way round. Six ways to earn yield on stablecoins, ordered by how durable the underlying source actually is.
The one thing to check before you deposit anywhere Ask what the counterparty is doing with your money to generate the return. There are only a handful of honest answers:
They’re lending it to someone who pays interest They’re putting it in Treasuries and sharing the coupon They’re running a trading strategy that generates returns They’re paying you out of token emissions or marketing budget The first three are businesses. The fourth is a countdown. If a platform can’t tell you which one it is in a sentence, that’s your answer.
1. Funding-rate arbitrage — yield from a market mechanism The source: perpetual futures contracts pay funding between long and short holders every few hours to keep the contract price tethered to spot. Crypto traders lean long most of the time, so shorts tend to collect. BitMEX’s Q3 2025 analysis found funding was positive for over 92% of the quarter — a persistent tilt, not a one-off.
A position that holds spot and shorts the perpetual collects that funding while the two legs cancel out directionally. The return isn’t coming from a token printer or a borrower who might default. It’s coming from leveraged traders paying to keep their positions open.
Typical return: varies with funding conditions and strategy. VectorTraders publishes target ranges from 7.8% to 43.3% annualised across its plans, depending on term and strategy mix.
The catch: funding can stay negative for extended periods, which inverts the payment direction. Execution runs on third-party exchanges, so venue risk is real. And running it yourself means managing two legs across venues continuously — which is why most people access it through a managed product rather than doing it directly. The full mechanism is explained here, worked example included.
Why it ranks first: the source is structural rather than promotional. Perpetual futures aren’t going anywhere — on-chain perp DEXs alone turned over $593 billion in 30 days as of September 2026 — and as long as traders use leverage, someone is paying funding.
Start small and see how it behaves. VectorTraders’ entry plan opens at $100 on a seven-day term, which is about the cheapest way to watch funding capture work in practice. See the current plans →
2. Tokenized Treasuries — yield from government debt The source: your stablecoins buy short-dated US Treasury bills through a tokenized fund, and you receive the coupon.
Typical return: tracks short-term Treasury rates, minus a management fee. Whatever T-bills are paying, roughly.
The catch: returns are capped at the risk-free rate, and they fall when rates fall. Many of these products are also restricted to accredited or institutional investors, and redemption can take a business day or more.
Why it ranks second: it’s the most boring source on this list, and that’s the compliment. You know exactly where the money comes from.
3. DeFi lending — yield from borrowers The source: protocols like Aave and Morpho let you supply stablecoins to a pool that borrowers draw from, paying interest. Rates float with utilisation.
Typical return: low single digits in quiet markets, spiking when leverage demand runs hot. Highly variable.
The catch: smart contract risk is the obvious one. The subtler one is that rates collapse exactly when you most want them — in calm markets, nobody’s borrowing. You’re also exposed to the protocol’s liquidation machinery working correctly during a crash, which is the moment it’s under the most stress.
4. Exchange rewards programmes — yield from a revenue share The source: exchanges pay rewards on stablecoin balances, typically funded by sharing the interest the issuer earns on its reserves.
Typical return: low single digits. Coinbase’s USDC rewards have run around 3.5%.
The catch: this is the category regulators have been circling. The GENIUS Act, signed in July 2025, bars stablecoin issuers from paying yield on reserves directly. The CLARITY Act would have extended restrictions to platforms, but it failed a Senate procedural vote 49–50 in September 2026, so the platform-level ban never became law. A proposed OCC rule on affiliate arrangements remains unresolved.
Translation: this yield source exists at the pleasure of a rulemaking process that is still moving. Fine for parking cash. Not something to build around.
5. Yield-bearing stablecoins — yield baked into the token The source: the token itself accrues value, usually from Treasuries or a delta-neutral strategy run by the issuer.
Typical return: varies enormously by product, because “yield-bearing stablecoin” describes a mechanism, not a risk level.
The catch: you’re taking the issuer’s strategy risk and their peg risk simultaneously, and the two are correlated — if the strategy breaks, the peg is what breaks. Read what’s actually backing it. Some are Treasury wrappers. Others are leveraged positions with a dollar sign on the front.
6. Liquidity provision and yield farming — yield from emissions The source: you supply stablecoins to a liquidity pool and earn trading fees plus, usually, token rewards.
Typical return: the advertised numbers are the highest on this list, and the realised numbers frequently are not.
The catch: headline APYs on stablecoin farms are typically dominated by token emissions rather than fees. Emissions decay, the token price usually falls as rewards are sold, and the quoted APY assumes neither happens. Add impermanent loss on non-pegged pairs and smart contract risk on top.
Why it ranks last: not because it never works — it sometimes works very well — but because the source is a marketing budget with a timer on it.
Side by side MethodWhere the yield comes fromDurabilityMain riskFunding-rate arbitrageLeveraged traders paying fundingStructuralNegative funding periods, venue riskTokenized TreasuriesGovernment debt couponsVery highRate-dependent, access restrictionsDeFi lendingBorrower interestModerateSmart contract, rate collapseExchange rewardsIssuer reserve revenue shareUncertainRegulatoryYield-bearing stablecoinsVaries by issuerVariesStrategy and peg risk combinedLiquidity provisionTrading fees + token emissionsLowEmission decay, impermanent loss How to actually choose If you want the yield to still be there in two years, weight durability over headline rate. Tokenized Treasuries and funding-rate strategies both have sources that exist independently of anyone’s marketing budget.
If you’re parking cash for a few weeks, exchange rewards are frictionless and the regulatory question won’t resolve in your holding period. Just don’t plan around it.
If you want the highest sustainable rate, funding-rate arbitrage has historically offered more than Treasuries because it’s compensating you for real operational work — running two legs across venues, managing exchange exposure, handling the periods when funding inverts. That’s a genuine return source, not a free lunch, and it comes with genuine risk.
If you’re drawn to a 20%+ farm APY, work out what percentage is fees and what percentage is token emissions before you deposit. The answer is usually uncomfortable.
One rule covers all of it: if you can’t explain where the money comes from, you’re not earning yield. You’re providing it.
Want the funding-rate route without running it yourself? Plans start at $100 with a seven-day term. Explore VectorTraders →
FAQ What is the best stablecoin yield in 2026? It depends on what you’re optimising for. Tokenized Treasuries offer the most predictable source. Funding-rate arbitrage strategies have historically offered higher rates in exchange for operational and market risk. Headline APYs on farms are usually the highest and the least durable.
Is stablecoin yield legal in the US? The GENIUS Act bars stablecoin issuers from paying yield on reserves directly. The CLARITY Act would have extended restrictions to platforms but failed a Senate procedural vote in September 2026. Rules in this area are still developing, so check current terms with any provider.
Why do stablecoins pay yield at all if they don’t appreciate? They don’t, on their own. The yield comes from whatever the platform does with the deposit — lending it, buying Treasuries, or running a trading strategy. The token is just the unit you deposit and withdraw in.
What’s the safest way to earn on stablecoins? No option here is risk-free. Tokenized Treasuries carry the least strategy risk because the underlying is government debt. Every other method adds counterparty, smart contract, or market risk on top.
How much can you earn on USDT or USDC? Low single digits from exchange rewards and Treasury products. Variable from DeFi lending. Higher from strategy-based products — VectorTraders publishes target ranges from 7.8% to 43.3% annualised depending on plan and term, with returns varying by market conditions.
Can funding rates go negative? Yes. When markets lean short, longs get paid instead. BitMEX found funding positive for over 92% of Q3 2025, but negative stretches have persisted for weeks in past drawdowns — most notably in March 2020 and after the FTX collapse in November 2022.
Disclosure: This content is provided by a third party. Neither crypto.news nor the author of this article endorses any product mentioned on this page. Users should conduct their own research before taking any action related to the company.
Holders who earned PAPER through trading losses can stake it for USDC distributions, but still have no date when they can transfer or sell their tokens.
Holders who earned PAPER through trading losses can stake it for USDC distributions, but still have no date when they can transfer or sell their tokens.
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Pump.fun has officially launched tokens tracking the market value and sentiment of major companies before their initial public offering (IPO).
Powered by @PreStocks, the debut features pre-IPO assets and paired memecoins. Previously, launching a memecoin on the platform required SOL or USDC as the underlying quote asset. The stocks integration means a memecoin uses the specific pre-IPO tracking token as its quote asset, hence why they are dubbed “Custom Pairs.”
The rollout includes eight initial companies, in the following categories:
AI companies – in this group are OpenAI and Anthropic.Prediction market companies – this cohort comprises Polymarket and Kalshi.Robotics company – in this group is Figure AI, which builds autonomous, general-purpose humanoid robots.Neuro technology company – another brainchild of tech mogul Elon Musk, Neuralink, falls here.Defense technology contractor – here is Anduril, a firm that builds autonomous military weapons.Health company – in this category is Oura, which manufactures biometric smart ring trackers.For Pump.fun, the development saw its token (PUMP) surge 8.41% in the last 24 hours, to trade at $0.004475.
Source: CoinMarketCap
The rally is attributed to the fact that the newly launched custom pair tokens will contribute to the ecosystem’s fees and hence its token buyback and burn mechanism.
As of late October, the model had permanently wiped out 17.2% of the token’s fixed supply. This, coupled with rising demand and successful projects, enhances the token’s value.
Source: Pump.fun official dashboard
CaveatsNotably, these tokens only provide synthetic exposure to the underlying companies. They do not, in any way, grant holders shareholder privileges such as voting rights or legal equity ownership.
More importantly, a valuation disconnect can be created when the synthetic assets rise to extreme valuations (trillions of dollars), while the platform’s total assets remain comparably lower.
Even more, the tokens are currently restricted for all US citizens because they are considered synthetic derivatives. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) banned this category of assets recently when granting a five-year innovation exception for tokenized stocks.
Outside the US, users are finding the 3%-5% pre-IPO token fees a hefty penalty for short-term high-frequency trading.
CriticsEthereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and Curve Founder Michael Egorov have previously criticized the Solana launchpad, likening it to a gambling den or a casino.
On X, the community questioned possible liquidity issues and regulatory status, while others looked forward to participating.
Memecoins paired with pre-IPO OpenAI and Anthropic exposure. The trenches just got a new base layer. Curious to see how liquidity behaves on these pairs vs SOL pairs.
— Cysco 🧪 (@cyscolab) October 19, 2026 Story Ends Here
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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 crypto whale liquidated $46 million in long positions in Tesla and semiconductor stocks, shifting instead to a large position in Google.
According to TradingBeats monitoring, a whale liquidated its long positions in Tesla, the DRAM Index, and the 3x semiconductor bull ETF SOXL last night, totaling roughly $46.317 million. The same account then established a long position in Google (GOOGL) worth approximately $44.393 million, marking a clear shift in holdings toward Google. The average entry price for this Google position is about $345.865, with an unrealized loss of around $188,000 and a liquidation price of $331.03; it also holds a long position in Amazon worth roughly $1.223 million.
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OKX will list US TradFi perpetual contracts for RUM, CRML, CVNA, MP, and TWST
OKX announced that it will launch U.S. dollar-denominated (U) U.S. TradFi perpetual contracts today, with underlying assets covering RUM, CRML, CVNA, MP, and TWST. The launch times (UTC+8) are 17:00, 17:15, 17:30, 17:45, and 18:00 respectively. The corresponding U.S. stock underlyings for these contracts are Rumble, Critical Metals, Carvana, MP Materials, and Twist Bioscience.
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$ZEC whale with $15M portfolio accumulates 3.69M $MASK tokens worth $151K in 3 days
A $ZEC whale is buying $MASK (Nullmask)!
This whale holds over $15M in assets, including 10,241 $ZEC ($11.69M).
Over the past 3 days, he has been accumulating $MASK, buying a total of 3.69M $MASK ($151K).
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JPMorgan predicts Bitcoin will be the highest-return asset over the next decade, outperforming U.S. stocks and gold.
JPMorgan Asset Management released its "2027 Long-Term Capital Market Assumptions" report on October 19, including Bitcoin in its long-term return forecast for the first time. The report projects Bitcoin’s compound annual return over the next 10 to 15 years will reach 10%, outperforming 7.5% for U.S. large-cap stocks, 5.5% for gold, and 8.2% for U.S. real estate investment trusts (REITs). It also estimates Bitcoin’s arithmetic average annual return at 20.9% and annualized volatility at 55%. Matt Hougan, chief investment officer of Bitwise, noted that JPMorgan has ranked Bitcoin as the top-performing asset expected over the next decade, a move that signals a shift in traditional financial institutions’ attitude toward crypto assets.
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After Anthropic disrupted IBM, OpenAI also posted a near-perfect score in COBOL migration.
Beating AI Express: In February this year, after Anthropic demonstrated Claude Code’s capability to modernize legacy COBOL systems, IBM’s stock price plummeted 13.2% in a single day. Eight months later, OpenAI released its latest results for the GPT-6 series on legacy programming languages, with a maximum success rate of 97.9% in COBOL code migration tests.
COBOL, created in the 1950s, remains widely used in banking transactions, ATMs, and insurance systems. Many programs have operated for decades, their original developers long departed, and some business rules exist only within the code itself. Rewriting these into modern languages requires not just making the code run, but also ensuring fully consistent calculation results. For instance, COBOL’s fixed-point arithmetic discards excess decimal places unless explicitly ordered to round; a new program using rounding instead could lead to financial account errors.
OpenAI specifically tested AI’s ability to convert COBOL programs to languages including C++, Java, Python, and Rust, requiring byte-for-byte identical output between the old and new programs. GPT-6.1 Sol achieved an 86.6% success rate at low inference settings, compared to just 5.4% for the previous GPT-5.6 Sol, with an estimated API cost reduction of 39%. Success rates climbed further to 97.9% when increasing inference settings.
OpenAI also open-sourced MultiLangBench, which tasked AI with building SQLite-compatible database engines from scratch in 20 different programming languages. GPT-6 Astra posted an average test pass rate of 87.4%, versus 26.8% for GPT-5.6 Sol. Between the two models, their scores on COBOL were 72.1% and 10.9% respectively – COBOL ranks as the most challenging of the 20 tested languages.
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Investors ramp up AI-related credit default swap trades to hedge against industry debt risks.
Investors are rushing to buy credit default swaps (CDS) to shield their portfolios from a potential AI boom bust. The financial instrument, which rose to prominence during the global financial crisis, has seen its trading volume surge sharply. Firms are on a borrowing spree to fund trillions of dollars in AI infrastructure spending, driving demand for these "insurance-like" derivatives that pay out if the underlying entity defaults on its debt. According to Morgan Stanley research, weekly average trading volume of CDS linked to bonds issued by Oracle, SpaceX, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Broadcom and Nvidia topped $9 billion in September, compared to less than $2 billion in July. Institutional data shows that year-to-date trading volume of U.S. corporate CDS indexes has already surpassed last year’s full-year total. (Financial Times)
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 crypto whale liquidated $46 million in long positions in Tesla and semiconductor stocks, shifting instead to a large position in Google.
According to TradingBeats monitoring, a whale liquidated its long positions in Tesla, the DRAM Index, and the 3x semiconductor bull ETF SOXL last night, totaling roughly $46.317 million. The same account then established a long position in Google (GOOGL) worth approximately $44.393 million, marking a clear shift in holdings toward Google. The average entry price for this Google position is about $345.865, with an unrealized loss of around $188,000 and a liquidation price of $331.03; it also holds a long position in Amazon worth roughly $1.223 million.
10 minutes ago
OKX will list US TradFi perpetual contracts for RUM, CRML, CVNA, MP, and TWST
OKX announced that it will launch U.S. dollar-denominated (U) U.S. TradFi perpetual contracts today, with underlying assets covering RUM, CRML, CVNA, MP, and TWST. The launch times (UTC+8) are 17:00, 17:15, 17:30, 17:45, and 18:00 respectively. The corresponding U.S. stock underlyings for these contracts are Rumble, Critical Metals, Carvana, MP Materials, and Twist Bioscience.
10 minutes ago
$ZEC whale with $15M portfolio accumulates 3.69M $MASK tokens worth $151K in 3 days
A $ZEC whale is buying $MASK (Nullmask)!
This whale holds over $15M in assets, including 10,241 $ZEC ($11.69M).
Over the past 3 days, he has been accumulating $MASK, buying a total of 3.69M $MASK ($151K).
10 minutes ago
JPMorgan predicts Bitcoin will be the highest-return asset over the next decade, outperforming U.S. stocks and gold.
JPMorgan Asset Management released its "2027 Long-Term Capital Market Assumptions" report on October 19, including Bitcoin in its long-term return forecast for the first time. The report projects Bitcoin’s compound annual return over the next 10 to 15 years will reach 10%, outperforming 7.5% for U.S. large-cap stocks, 5.5% for gold, and 8.2% for U.S. real estate investment trusts (REITs). It also estimates Bitcoin’s arithmetic average annual return at 20.9% and annualized volatility at 55%. Matt Hougan, chief investment officer of Bitwise, noted that JPMorgan has ranked Bitcoin as the top-performing asset expected over the next decade, a move that signals a shift in traditional financial institutions’ attitude toward crypto assets.
10 minutes ago
After Anthropic disrupted IBM, OpenAI also posted a near-perfect score in COBOL migration.
Beating AI Express: In February this year, after Anthropic demonstrated Claude Code’s capability to modernize legacy COBOL systems, IBM’s stock price plummeted 13.2% in a single day. Eight months later, OpenAI released its latest results for the GPT-6 series on legacy programming languages, with a maximum success rate of 97.9% in COBOL code migration tests.
COBOL, created in the 1950s, remains widely used in banking transactions, ATMs, and insurance systems. Many programs have operated for decades, their original developers long departed, and some business rules exist only within the code itself. Rewriting these into modern languages requires not just making the code run, but also ensuring fully consistent calculation results. For instance, COBOL’s fixed-point arithmetic discards excess decimal places unless explicitly ordered to round; a new program using rounding instead could lead to financial account errors.
OpenAI specifically tested AI’s ability to convert COBOL programs to languages including C++, Java, Python, and Rust, requiring byte-for-byte identical output between the old and new programs. GPT-6.1 Sol achieved an 86.6% success rate at low inference settings, compared to just 5.4% for the previous GPT-5.6 Sol, with an estimated API cost reduction of 39%. Success rates climbed further to 97.9% when increasing inference settings.
OpenAI also open-sourced MultiLangBench, which tasked AI with building SQLite-compatible database engines from scratch in 20 different programming languages. GPT-6 Astra posted an average test pass rate of 87.4%, versus 26.8% for GPT-5.6 Sol. Between the two models, their scores on COBOL were 72.1% and 10.9% respectively – COBOL ranks as the most challenging of the 20 tested languages.
10 minutes ago
Investors ramp up AI-related credit default swap trades to hedge against industry debt risks.
Investors are rushing to buy credit default swaps (CDS) to shield their portfolios from a potential AI boom bust. The financial instrument, which rose to prominence during the global financial crisis, has seen its trading volume surge sharply. Firms are on a borrowing spree to fund trillions of dollars in AI infrastructure spending, driving demand for these "insurance-like" derivatives that pay out if the underlying entity defaults on its debt. According to Morgan Stanley research, weekly average trading volume of CDS linked to bonds issued by Oracle, SpaceX, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Broadcom and Nvidia topped $9 billion in September, compared to less than $2 billion in July. Institutional data shows that year-to-date trading volume of U.S. corporate CDS indexes has already surpassed last year’s full-year total. (Financial Times)
The consumer-spend layer that was missing from the stablecoin infrastructure stack just arrived. Mesh handles the conversion; merchants see nothing but a normal Visa transaction.
The stablecoin payments buildout has spent the year assembling rails: Visa Direct moving USDC prefunding into commercial production, Mastercard wiring BVNK stablecoin settlement into 130 countries, and Marqeta and Coinbase building processor-layer settlement on Base. Each solved a different leg: cross-border prefunding, card issuing, and processor integration. What none of them solved was the simplest question of all: can you spend your stablecoin balance at the grocery store?
On October 19, 2026, Mesh and Visa announced a partnership that attempts to close exactly that gap. The mechanism is deliberately unglamorous. A Visa credential gets provisioned behind the scenes inside participating wallet apps. The consumer taps at a standard contactless terminal or checks out online. Mesh orchestrates how the transaction is funded and converted across crypto, stablecoin, and fiat balances. The merchant receives a normal fiat payment. No new hardware. No new workflow. Nothing changes at the point of sale except that the money can now come from a place it could not come from before.
The scale of the acceptance network is the headline number, and it bears repeating: upwards of 175 million merchant locations across more than 200 countries and territories, backed by $14.2 trillion in Visa payments volume in fiscal 2025. Mesh, which already has more than 200 enterprises on its network, acts as the program manager handling user onboarding, KYC, and the orchestration layer that routes each transaction’s funding source. Platforms where consumers hold balances integrate once with Mesh and their users can spend anywhere Visa is accepted.
The demand side makes the case for why this matters now. Global crypto ownership reached 774 million as of June 2026, per Crypto.com research, yet almost none of that collective value touches everyday spending. According to American Banker, crypto card volumes were running at roughly $1.5 billion monthly by late 2025 – a figure that remains a rounding error against the total addressable balance. Every existing route that turns a stablecoin balance into a purchase still asks the consumer to act first: cash out to a bank account and wait, or sign up for a card tied to a single platform. The Mesh-Visa model removes that friction by converting at the moment of payment rather than requiring pre-conversion.
What makes this structurally different from prior stablecoin payment launches is the principal model. Visa Direct (Post 132225) solved the cross-border prefunding leg for money transmitters and fintechs. Mastercard’s stablecoin-linked Global Money Platform solved the card-issuing leg through BVNK. Coinbase and Marqeta solved the processor settlement leg through Base. Mesh occupies a different position entirely: it sits inside the wallet, not inside the payment chain. The consumer does not need a new card, a new account, or a new app. The balance they already hold becomes purchasing power at the moment of payment, with Mesh handling the conversion and the merchant receiving standard fiat settlement.
Bam Azizi, CEO and co-founder of Mesh, framed the gap plainly: “Crypto never had a spending problem – it has a last-mile problem, and until now, closing it meant getting a separate card. Mesh handles the funding and conversion, so a balance becomes purchasing power at the moment of payment, with nothing for the user to move and nothing for the merchant to change.” Rubail Birwadker, Global Head of Growth at Visa, added: “Consumers increasingly expect to use their money however and wherever they choose. Working with Mesh helps expand how digital asset balances can connect to the trusted payment experiences consumers and merchants rely on every day.”
The initial integrators tell the story of where this lands first. Mesh already counts Kalshi, Tools for Humanity, Felix Pago, Majority, and KAST among its enterprise partners, and the company claims its network reaches hundreds of millions of users through existing platform integrations. The initial availability, supported devices, and participating platforms will be announced as rollout details are finalized, which is the standard caveat that accompanies every partnership announcement of this class.
The timing is not accidental. Money20/20 USA runs this week in Las Vegas, and the conference has programmed six stablecoin sessions across two days. The industry is no longer asking whether stablecoin payments work at scale; it is asking how fast the consumer-facing layer can be built. With GENIUS Act compliance requirements looming on January 18, 2027, institutions need production track records, not pilot announcements. The Mesh-Visa partnership is the consumer-spend equivalent of what Visa Direct did for cross-border prefunding: it converts an infrastructure question into a payments question and asks the merchant nothing at all.
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Visa has moved stablecoin prefunding on Visa Direct, its push-payments network, from pilot into commercial deployment. Payments processor Inyo Global is the first enabler, and its clients can now prefund cross-border payouts with USDC in near real time instead of relying only on traditional bank funding windows, according to Visa's October 15 release.
The stablecoin sits on the sender's side of the transaction. Inyo's platform pays out across more than 180 countries, and recipients still receive local currency. The release names USDC as the only stablecoin and does not identify the blockchains used, the corridors covered or any expected volumes. Availability "varies by eligibility and geography," the release says.
"The next chapter for stablecoins is adoption," said Vira Platonova, Global Head of Visa Direct. "We're now seeing those efforts translate into live implementations." Robson Dantas, Chief Product and Technology Officer and co-founder at Inyo Global, said: "Innovation in money movement is ultimately about creating a better experience for customers."
The production launch arrives a little over a year after Visa announced the prefunding pilot at Sibos in September 2025, when it said the pilot was expected to reach limited availability by April 2026.
Visa's own disclosures show its broader stablecoin numbers climbing quickly. At its Visa Payments Forum in June, the company put stablecoin settlement across VisaNet at an annualized run rate of approximately $7 billion and said more than 160 stablecoin-linked card programs were live or in development. By September 8, a Visa web page said settlement volume had "recently surpassed a $20 billion annualized run rate, up more than 15x year over year."
Those figures warrant some caution. Visa has not said what period the run rates are annualized from or how stablecoin settlement volume is counted.
The competitive picture has also shifted under Visa Direct. BVNK, which began powering stablecoin payments for Visa Direct in January, agreed in March to be acquired by Mastercard for up to $1.8 billion, including $300 million in contingent payments, in a deal expected to close by year-end.
Visa's fiscal year closed on September 30, and its fourth-quarter results will be the next opportunity for the company to put stablecoin settlement volume on a formal reporting footing and to name further Visa Direct partners going live.
Circle and Tether are the leading stablecoin issuers across the globe, providing USDC and USDT, respectively. However, it is Circle that has been making moves toward regulatory clarity faster than Tether.
For instance, USDC became the EU‘s first significant stablecoin under MiCA regulation. In fact, Circle’s revenue for the first half of the year, at $1.40 billion, confirmed its growing adoption.
Circle’s USDC has been dominated by agentic payments, which has contributed to such revenue. Even with that, the protocol is aiming for a larger global reach.
Circle to expand USDC to 40 developing markets
While stablecoin adoption has continued to grow, it has not reached greater levels. As such, CEO Jeremy Allaire of Circle announced they were targeting expansion into 40 developing markets across Latin America, Southeast Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.
In this context, Visa is now moving USDC funding for cross-border payouts from pilot to commercial use across 180 countries.
However, the cost of turning USDC back into local money is unknown. A cheap transfer can still have an expensive last step.
This could widen the gap between USDC and USDT in transaction volume. According to Bernstein reports, it now handles over 60% of adjusted transaction volume in 2026, despite USDT having a bigger cap.
That is, USDC was capped at $72.5 billion, while USDT was at $183 billion, which is more than double. Still, Circle continues to provide stablecoin liquidity, minting $3.75 billion in USDC on Solana over the past 7 days.
Has Circle’s new blockchain helped in the quest?
As Circle challenges Tether in stablecoin business dominance, it launched its chain in mid-September under the name Arc. However, the Arc blockchain is still underutilized, accounting for less than 1% of all USDC, equivalent to $661.4 million.
As per Token Terminal, 66.6% of the supply was on Ethereum [ETH], with Solana [SOL], HyperEVM, Base, and Arbitrum One [ARB] following, respectively. This indicates that Arc is yet to play a key role in challenging USDT’s dominance.
Source: Token Terminal
It is still worth noting that the DeFi TVL of USDC grew by 6% upon chain launch. Weekly asset senders also increased by 5.4%, reaching 5.5 million as of press time.
However, Circle’s stock CRCL continued to decline in valuation, from $84 to $82.
Final Summary
Circle’s USDC accounts for 60% of stablecoin transactions, even though USDT has a market cap that is double.
Despite launching Arc blockchain, most of the USDC circulating supply was sitting on Ethereum and Solana.
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 crypto whale liquidated $46 million in long positions in Tesla and semiconductor stocks, shifting instead to a large position in Google.
According to TradingBeats monitoring, a whale liquidated its long positions in Tesla, the DRAM Index, and the 3x semiconductor bull ETF SOXL last night, totaling roughly $46.317 million. The same account then established a long position in Google (GOOGL) worth approximately $44.393 million, marking a clear shift in holdings toward Google. The average entry price for this Google position is about $345.865, with an unrealized loss of around $188,000 and a liquidation price of $331.03; it also holds a long position in Amazon worth roughly $1.223 million.
10 minutes ago
OKX will list US TradFi perpetual contracts for RUM, CRML, CVNA, MP, and TWST
OKX announced that it will launch U.S. dollar-denominated (U) U.S. TradFi perpetual contracts today, with underlying assets covering RUM, CRML, CVNA, MP, and TWST. The launch times (UTC+8) are 17:00, 17:15, 17:30, 17:45, and 18:00 respectively. The corresponding U.S. stock underlyings for these contracts are Rumble, Critical Metals, Carvana, MP Materials, and Twist Bioscience.
10 minutes ago
$ZEC whale with $15M portfolio accumulates 3.69M $MASK tokens worth $151K in 3 days
A $ZEC whale is buying $MASK (Nullmask)!
This whale holds over $15M in assets, including 10,241 $ZEC ($11.69M).
Over the past 3 days, he has been accumulating $MASK, buying a total of 3.69M $MASK ($151K).
10 minutes ago
JPMorgan predicts Bitcoin will be the highest-return asset over the next decade, outperforming U.S. stocks and gold.
JPMorgan Asset Management released its "2027 Long-Term Capital Market Assumptions" report on October 19, including Bitcoin in its long-term return forecast for the first time. The report projects Bitcoin’s compound annual return over the next 10 to 15 years will reach 10%, outperforming 7.5% for U.S. large-cap stocks, 5.5% for gold, and 8.2% for U.S. real estate investment trusts (REITs). It also estimates Bitcoin’s arithmetic average annual return at 20.9% and annualized volatility at 55%. Matt Hougan, chief investment officer of Bitwise, noted that JPMorgan has ranked Bitcoin as the top-performing asset expected over the next decade, a move that signals a shift in traditional financial institutions’ attitude toward crypto assets.
10 minutes ago
After Anthropic disrupted IBM, OpenAI also posted a near-perfect score in COBOL migration.
Beating AI Express: In February this year, after Anthropic demonstrated Claude Code’s capability to modernize legacy COBOL systems, IBM’s stock price plummeted 13.2% in a single day. Eight months later, OpenAI released its latest results for the GPT-6 series on legacy programming languages, with a maximum success rate of 97.9% in COBOL code migration tests.
COBOL, created in the 1950s, remains widely used in banking transactions, ATMs, and insurance systems. Many programs have operated for decades, their original developers long departed, and some business rules exist only within the code itself. Rewriting these into modern languages requires not just making the code run, but also ensuring fully consistent calculation results. For instance, COBOL’s fixed-point arithmetic discards excess decimal places unless explicitly ordered to round; a new program using rounding instead could lead to financial account errors.
OpenAI specifically tested AI’s ability to convert COBOL programs to languages including C++, Java, Python, and Rust, requiring byte-for-byte identical output between the old and new programs. GPT-6.1 Sol achieved an 86.6% success rate at low inference settings, compared to just 5.4% for the previous GPT-5.6 Sol, with an estimated API cost reduction of 39%. Success rates climbed further to 97.9% when increasing inference settings.
OpenAI also open-sourced MultiLangBench, which tasked AI with building SQLite-compatible database engines from scratch in 20 different programming languages. GPT-6 Astra posted an average test pass rate of 87.4%, versus 26.8% for GPT-5.6 Sol. Between the two models, their scores on COBOL were 72.1% and 10.9% respectively – COBOL ranks as the most challenging of the 20 tested languages.
10 minutes ago
Investors ramp up AI-related credit default swap trades to hedge against industry debt risks.
Investors are rushing to buy credit default swaps (CDS) to shield their portfolios from a potential AI boom bust. The financial instrument, which rose to prominence during the global financial crisis, has seen its trading volume surge sharply. Firms are on a borrowing spree to fund trillions of dollars in AI infrastructure spending, driving demand for these "insurance-like" derivatives that pay out if the underlying entity defaults on its debt. According to Morgan Stanley research, weekly average trading volume of CDS linked to bonds issued by Oracle, SpaceX, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Broadcom and Nvidia topped $9 billion in September, compared to less than $2 billion in July. Institutional data shows that year-to-date trading volume of U.S. corporate CDS indexes has already surpassed last year’s full-year total. (Financial Times)
A crypto whale liquidated $46 million in long positions in Tesla and semiconductor stocks, shifting instead to a large position in Google.
According to TradingBeats monitoring, a whale liquidated its long positions in Tesla, the DRAM Index, and the 3x semiconductor bull ETF SOXL last night, totaling roughly $46.317 million. The same account then established a long position in Google (GOOGL) worth approximately $44.393 million, marking a clear shift in holdings toward Google. The average entry price for this Google position is about $345.865, with an unrealized loss of around $188,000 and a liquidation price of $331.03; it also holds a long position in Amazon worth roughly $1.223 million.
10 minutes ago
OKX will list US TradFi perpetual contracts for RUM, CRML, CVNA, MP, and TWST
OKX announced that it will launch U.S. dollar-denominated (U) U.S. TradFi perpetual contracts today, with underlying assets covering RUM, CRML, CVNA, MP, and TWST. The launch times (UTC+8) are 17:00, 17:15, 17:30, 17:45, and 18:00 respectively. The corresponding U.S. stock underlyings for these contracts are Rumble, Critical Metals, Carvana, MP Materials, and Twist Bioscience.
10 minutes ago
$ZEC whale with $15M portfolio accumulates 3.69M $MASK tokens worth $151K in 3 days
A $ZEC whale is buying $MASK (Nullmask)!
This whale holds over $15M in assets, including 10,241 $ZEC ($11.69M).
Over the past 3 days, he has been accumulating $MASK, buying a total of 3.69M $MASK ($151K).
10 minutes ago
JPMorgan predicts Bitcoin will be the highest-return asset over the next decade, outperforming U.S. stocks and gold.
JPMorgan Asset Management released its "2027 Long-Term Capital Market Assumptions" report on October 19, including Bitcoin in its long-term return forecast for the first time. The report projects Bitcoin’s compound annual return over the next 10 to 15 years will reach 10%, outperforming 7.5% for U.S. large-cap stocks, 5.5% for gold, and 8.2% for U.S. real estate investment trusts (REITs). It also estimates Bitcoin’s arithmetic average annual return at 20.9% and annualized volatility at 55%. Matt Hougan, chief investment officer of Bitwise, noted that JPMorgan has ranked Bitcoin as the top-performing asset expected over the next decade, a move that signals a shift in traditional financial institutions’ attitude toward crypto assets.
10 minutes ago
After Anthropic disrupted IBM, OpenAI also posted a near-perfect score in COBOL migration.
Beating AI Express: In February this year, after Anthropic demonstrated Claude Code’s capability to modernize legacy COBOL systems, IBM’s stock price plummeted 13.2% in a single day. Eight months later, OpenAI released its latest results for the GPT-6 series on legacy programming languages, with a maximum success rate of 97.9% in COBOL code migration tests.
COBOL, created in the 1950s, remains widely used in banking transactions, ATMs, and insurance systems. Many programs have operated for decades, their original developers long departed, and some business rules exist only within the code itself. Rewriting these into modern languages requires not just making the code run, but also ensuring fully consistent calculation results. For instance, COBOL’s fixed-point arithmetic discards excess decimal places unless explicitly ordered to round; a new program using rounding instead could lead to financial account errors.
OpenAI specifically tested AI’s ability to convert COBOL programs to languages including C++, Java, Python, and Rust, requiring byte-for-byte identical output between the old and new programs. GPT-6.1 Sol achieved an 86.6% success rate at low inference settings, compared to just 5.4% for the previous GPT-5.6 Sol, with an estimated API cost reduction of 39%. Success rates climbed further to 97.9% when increasing inference settings.
OpenAI also open-sourced MultiLangBench, which tasked AI with building SQLite-compatible database engines from scratch in 20 different programming languages. GPT-6 Astra posted an average test pass rate of 87.4%, versus 26.8% for GPT-5.6 Sol. Between the two models, their scores on COBOL were 72.1% and 10.9% respectively – COBOL ranks as the most challenging of the 20 tested languages.
10 minutes ago
Investors ramp up AI-related credit default swap trades to hedge against industry debt risks.
Investors are rushing to buy credit default swaps (CDS) to shield their portfolios from a potential AI boom bust. The financial instrument, which rose to prominence during the global financial crisis, has seen its trading volume surge sharply. Firms are on a borrowing spree to fund trillions of dollars in AI infrastructure spending, driving demand for these "insurance-like" derivatives that pay out if the underlying entity defaults on its debt. According to Morgan Stanley research, weekly average trading volume of CDS linked to bonds issued by Oracle, SpaceX, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Broadcom and Nvidia topped $9 billion in September, compared to less than $2 billion in July. Institutional data shows that year-to-date trading volume of U.S. corporate CDS indexes has already surpassed last year’s full-year total. (Financial Times)
Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.
Disclosure. PANews may publish sponsored content, partner content, advertisements, affiliate links, event promotions, and market commentary involving Web3 projects, service providers, or financial products. PANews personnel, contributors, or affiliates may hold digital assets or other interests related to covered topics. See our Terms of Service.
Algorand uses a committee vote and Pure Proof-of-Stake to avoid forks, so payments are final in one block of about 2.8 seconds. Here is how it compares with Bitcoin.
Bitcoin users usually wait about an hour before treating a payment as settled. Algorand ($ALGO) takes a different approach: payments are final as soon as they land in a block, which arrive roughly every 2.8 seconds.
Why Bitcoin payments wait for confirmationsOn Bitcoin ($BTC), miners work at the same time, so conflicting versions of the chain can briefly form. According to a University of Maryland paper, the shorter branch is orphaned and any conflicting transactions are invalidated. This is the fork problem, and it means a payment on the losing side can be undone.
The risk of a reversal falls as more blocks are added on top. The same paper notes that a transaction with six confirmations is widely accepted as secure against double-spending. At about 10 minutes per block, researchers note that six confirmations take roughly an hour, which makes payments slow.
How Algorand avoids forksAlgorand is built to stop those splits from happening. It uses Pure Proof-of-Stake, in which, per Spark's Bitcoin vs Algorand comparison, a verifiable random function selects block proposers and committee members. Selection odds are proportional to the amount of ALGO held. Each new block goes to a vote by randomly chosen voters, and it needs more than two-thirds of the votes to pass.
Because the chain does not split, there is nothing to roll back. Finst's Algorand explainer says there is no need for several more blocks to be built on top of a block before it gets extra confirmation. Spark lists Algorand's finality as deterministic, in a single block, against Bitcoin's probabilistic finality of about 60 minutes for six confirmations.
The trade-off in a crisisThe design has a cost when things go wrong. If the network splits, or too many voters act dishonestly, Algorand stops producing blocks. Payments then wait until enough honest voters can reach each other again to restart. The protocol tolerates bad actors only while more than two-thirds of the stake is honest, according to Spark.
In short, Algorand trades continuous availability under extreme stress for speed and certainty in normal operation. Bitcoin makes the opposite trade: the chain keeps moving, but users wait for added confirmations before they can rely on a payment.
Sources:
Algorand: Pure Proof-of-Stake technologySpark: Bitcoin vs AlgorandLiao and Katz: Incentivizing Double-Spend Collusion in Bitcoin
Citi Research has released a report stating that it is no longer sufficient to view Aave solely as a crypto-native lending protocol. As tokenized assets, stablecoins, and institutional participation gradually integrate into mainstream finance, Aave is poised to be positioned as a decentralized collateral liquidity protocol. Projects including Aave V4, Horizon, and GHO all point to the intersection of collateral, liquidity, and financing. The report notes that if tokenization determines which assets enter on-chain ecosystems, and stablecoins become the default settlement base, Aave could help shape how these assets are financed, leveraged, used as collateral, and integrated into capital markets. Citi argues that as tokenization expands beyond stablecoins to money market funds, private credit, Treasuries, and even future equities, collateral circulation may eventually emerge as one of the most important use cases of tokenization. Aave provides a practical case study showing how tokenized assets can be used for collateralized borrowing, financing, and re-collateralization within the digital financial system, while also offering insights into the future of tokenized capital markets, securities financing, and even prime brokerage.
Bitcoin has barely moved despite another turbulent week for global markets. But an unusually tight trading pattern is raising fears of a sudden price swing, with $80,000 emerging as the level that could decide its direction.
BTC trades near $82,538, up 0.92% in 24 hours. Meanwhile, its Bollinger Bands, a popular measure of price volatility, have narrowed to one of their tightest readings in two and a half years.
According to Barchart, the bands are now just $5,368 apart, equivalent to roughly 6.5% of Bitcoin’s price.
Such compression often precedes larger price movements. However, it offers no reliable indication of which direction Bitcoin will take.
Bitcoin’s Last Two Volatility Squeezes Ended in 30% SwingsThe warning comes from Bitcoin’s own price history.
In May, a similar squeeze near $82,000 ended with Bitcoin crashing almost 30% below $58,000.
Three months later, another squeeze near $63,000 produced the opposite result. Bitcoin surged more than 35% toward $87,000.
This time, the market faces a different test.
Despite last week’s technology-stock selloff and oil prices above $100, Bitcoin closed the week above $82,000.
Analyst Ted Pillows identified that level as crucial support, having previously acted as resistance in May.
But the recovery remains fragile. Trading volume has weakened since June, suggesting buyers have yet to return with conviction.
Worst week for Nasdaq in 18 months.
Oil > $100.
VIX above 22.
And still, $BTC managed another weekly close above $82,000.
But that doesn't mean it's completely in a safe zone.
For strong momentum, Bitcoin needs to reclaim $84,500, or else we could see another correction below… pic.twitter.com/BXRYCdJIaS
— Ted (@TedPillows) October 19, 2026 Could Bitcoin Crash Below $80,000 Again?The immediate battleground sits between $80,000 and $85,000.
A daily close above $85,000, backed by stronger trading volume, could send Bitcoin toward $87,000 and potentially $89,358.
Conversely, losing $80,000 would expose support near $79,033 and $77,876. A deeper selloff could push prices toward $73,000–$75,000.
BTC daily chart. Source: TradingViewFor investors, the coming breakout could be deceptive. Previous squeezes demonstrate how quickly Bitcoin can move once volatility returns.
The critical signal will be whether trading volume confirms the next move beyond $80,000–$85,000.
Disclaimer
This Analysis reflects BeInCrypto's editorial interpretation of information and data available at publication and may become outdated. It is general and non-personalised, does not consider your circumstances, and is not investment research, financial, investment, legal or tax advice, an offer or a recommendation. Forecasts, targets, technical analysis and forward-looking statements are uncertain and may not materialise; past performance and indicators do not predict future results. References to assets, products or providers do not imply endorsement. Crypto-assets and financial products may result in total loss. Verify material information before acting.
Hedera chief policy officer Nilmini Rubin says the EU has no US crypto law to align with after the CLARITY Act stalled in the Senate, as the SEC and CFTC write rules instead.
Europe has no US crypto law to line up with, according to Hedera (@hedera) chief policy officer Nilmini Rubin (@nilminirubin), after the CLARITY Act stalled in the US Senate. The setback leaves a planned EU-US effort on mutual recognition of crypto rules without an American counterpart to work with.
Rubin said a European government leader told her the EU had hoped to work this year on getting the EU and US to recognize each other's crypto rules. Now they "don't really have anything to be equivalent with," she recalled. She made the comments on an Atlantic Council (@ACGeoEcon) panel at last week's IMF and World Bank meetings in Bangkok.
CLARITY Act stalls in the SenateThe bill, a US crypto market structure measure, hit a wall on September 15. , according to law firm Paul Hastings.
The vote was procedural. Reporting indicates the dispute centered on ethics language covering officials' crypto holdings.
The bill is not formally dead. Even so,
SEC and CFTC fill the gapRubin also said the SEC and CFTC are now writing crypto rules instead. That matches the Paul Hastings account, which noted that
Agency rulemaking may move faster than Congress, but it offers a less settled footing for international coordination than a statute would. That is a concern for firms operating across the Atlantic, where Rubin has argued that rules for tokenized markets need to work across borders.
In a Bretton Woods Committee piece ahead of the Bangkok meetings, Rubin and Hedera colleague Isadora Arredondo wrote that
For Hedera, which positions its network for enterprise and institutional use, regulatory alignment between the two largest Western markets is a practical issue. Without a US statute, any EU-US equivalence process has to wait for either a revived CLARITY Act or finalized agency rules.
Sources:
Paul Hastings: Clarity Act fails Senate votecrypto.news: The CLARITY Act stalledBretton Woods Committee: Tokenized Markets Need Rules That Travel
$ZEC whale with $15M portfolio accumulates 3.69M $MASK tokens worth $151K in 3 days
A $ZEC whale is buying $MASK (Nullmask)!
This whale holds over $15M in assets, including 10,241 $ZEC ($11.69M).
Over the past 3 days, he has been accumulating $MASK, buying a total of 3.69M $MASK ($151K).
5 minutes ago
JPMorgan predicts Bitcoin will be the highest-return asset over the next decade, outperforming U.S. stocks and gold.
JPMorgan Asset Management released its "2027 Long-Term Capital Market Assumptions" report on October 19, including Bitcoin in its long-term return forecast for the first time. The report projects Bitcoin’s compound annual return over the next 10 to 15 years will reach 10%, outperforming 7.5% for U.S. large-cap stocks, 5.5% for gold, and 8.2% for U.S. real estate investment trusts (REITs). It also estimates Bitcoin’s arithmetic average annual return at 20.9% and annualized volatility at 55%. Matt Hougan, chief investment officer of Bitwise, noted that JPMorgan has ranked Bitcoin as the top-performing asset expected over the next decade, a move that signals a shift in traditional financial institutions’ attitude toward crypto assets.
5 minutes ago
After Anthropic disrupted IBM, OpenAI also posted a near-perfect score in COBOL migration.
Beating AI Express: In February this year, after Anthropic demonstrated Claude Code’s capability to modernize legacy COBOL systems, IBM’s stock price plummeted 13.2% in a single day. Eight months later, OpenAI released its latest results for the GPT-6 series on legacy programming languages, with a maximum success rate of 97.9% in COBOL code migration tests.
COBOL, created in the 1950s, remains widely used in banking transactions, ATMs, and insurance systems. Many programs have operated for decades, their original developers long departed, and some business rules exist only within the code itself. Rewriting these into modern languages requires not just making the code run, but also ensuring fully consistent calculation results. For instance, COBOL’s fixed-point arithmetic discards excess decimal places unless explicitly ordered to round; a new program using rounding instead could lead to financial account errors.
OpenAI specifically tested AI’s ability to convert COBOL programs to languages including C++, Java, Python, and Rust, requiring byte-for-byte identical output between the old and new programs. GPT-6.1 Sol achieved an 86.6% success rate at low inference settings, compared to just 5.4% for the previous GPT-5.6 Sol, with an estimated API cost reduction of 39%. Success rates climbed further to 97.9% when increasing inference settings.
OpenAI also open-sourced MultiLangBench, which tasked AI with building SQLite-compatible database engines from scratch in 20 different programming languages. GPT-6 Astra posted an average test pass rate of 87.4%, versus 26.8% for GPT-5.6 Sol. Between the two models, their scores on COBOL were 72.1% and 10.9% respectively – COBOL ranks as the most challenging of the 20 tested languages.
5 minutes ago
Investors ramp up AI-related credit default swap trades to hedge against industry debt risks.
Investors are rushing to buy credit default swaps (CDS) to shield their portfolios from a potential AI boom bust. The financial instrument, which rose to prominence during the global financial crisis, has seen its trading volume surge sharply. Firms are on a borrowing spree to fund trillions of dollars in AI infrastructure spending, driving demand for these "insurance-like" derivatives that pay out if the underlying entity defaults on its debt. According to Morgan Stanley research, weekly average trading volume of CDS linked to bonds issued by Oracle, SpaceX, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Broadcom and Nvidia topped $9 billion in September, compared to less than $2 billion in July. Institutional data shows that year-to-date trading volume of U.S. corporate CDS indexes has already surpassed last year’s full-year total. (Financial Times)
5 minutes ago
A ZEC-holding crypto whale increased its MASK holdings, purchasing 3.69 million tokens over the past three days.
According to Lookonchain’s monitoring, a crypto whale holds over $15 million in assets, including 10,241 ZEC tokens valued at $11.69 million. The whale has been steadily accumulating MASK tokens over the past three days, purchasing a total of 3.69 million MASK tokens worth $151,000.
5 minutes ago
$ZEC Whale Buys 3.69M $MASK (Nullmask) ($151K) Over 3 Days
A $ZEC whale is buying $MASK (Nullmask)! This whale holds over $15M in assets, including 10,241 $ZEC ($11.69M). Over the past 3 days, he has been accumulating $MASK, buying a total of 3.69M $MASK ($151K).
$ZEC whale with $15M portfolio accumulates 3.69M $MASK tokens worth $151K in 3 days
A $ZEC whale is buying $MASK (Nullmask)!
This whale holds over $15M in assets, including 10,241 $ZEC ($11.69M).
Over the past 3 days, he has been accumulating $MASK, buying a total of 3.69M $MASK ($151K).
5 minutes ago
JPMorgan predicts Bitcoin will be the highest-return asset over the next decade, outperforming U.S. stocks and gold.
JPMorgan Asset Management released its "2027 Long-Term Capital Market Assumptions" report on October 19, including Bitcoin in its long-term return forecast for the first time. The report projects Bitcoin’s compound annual return over the next 10 to 15 years will reach 10%, outperforming 7.5% for U.S. large-cap stocks, 5.5% for gold, and 8.2% for U.S. real estate investment trusts (REITs). It also estimates Bitcoin’s arithmetic average annual return at 20.9% and annualized volatility at 55%. Matt Hougan, chief investment officer of Bitwise, noted that JPMorgan has ranked Bitcoin as the top-performing asset expected over the next decade, a move that signals a shift in traditional financial institutions’ attitude toward crypto assets.
5 minutes ago
After Anthropic disrupted IBM, OpenAI also posted a near-perfect score in COBOL migration.
Beating AI Express: In February this year, after Anthropic demonstrated Claude Code’s capability to modernize legacy COBOL systems, IBM’s stock price plummeted 13.2% in a single day. Eight months later, OpenAI released its latest results for the GPT-6 series on legacy programming languages, with a maximum success rate of 97.9% in COBOL code migration tests.
COBOL, created in the 1950s, remains widely used in banking transactions, ATMs, and insurance systems. Many programs have operated for decades, their original developers long departed, and some business rules exist only within the code itself. Rewriting these into modern languages requires not just making the code run, but also ensuring fully consistent calculation results. For instance, COBOL’s fixed-point arithmetic discards excess decimal places unless explicitly ordered to round; a new program using rounding instead could lead to financial account errors.
OpenAI specifically tested AI’s ability to convert COBOL programs to languages including C++, Java, Python, and Rust, requiring byte-for-byte identical output between the old and new programs. GPT-6.1 Sol achieved an 86.6% success rate at low inference settings, compared to just 5.4% for the previous GPT-5.6 Sol, with an estimated API cost reduction of 39%. Success rates climbed further to 97.9% when increasing inference settings.
OpenAI also open-sourced MultiLangBench, which tasked AI with building SQLite-compatible database engines from scratch in 20 different programming languages. GPT-6 Astra posted an average test pass rate of 87.4%, versus 26.8% for GPT-5.6 Sol. Between the two models, their scores on COBOL were 72.1% and 10.9% respectively – COBOL ranks as the most challenging of the 20 tested languages.
5 minutes ago
Investors ramp up AI-related credit default swap trades to hedge against industry debt risks.
Investors are rushing to buy credit default swaps (CDS) to shield their portfolios from a potential AI boom bust. The financial instrument, which rose to prominence during the global financial crisis, has seen its trading volume surge sharply. Firms are on a borrowing spree to fund trillions of dollars in AI infrastructure spending, driving demand for these "insurance-like" derivatives that pay out if the underlying entity defaults on its debt. According to Morgan Stanley research, weekly average trading volume of CDS linked to bonds issued by Oracle, SpaceX, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Broadcom and Nvidia topped $9 billion in September, compared to less than $2 billion in July. Institutional data shows that year-to-date trading volume of U.S. corporate CDS indexes has already surpassed last year’s full-year total. (Financial Times)
5 minutes ago
A ZEC-holding crypto whale increased its MASK holdings, purchasing 3.69 million tokens over the past three days.
According to Lookonchain’s monitoring, a crypto whale holds over $15 million in assets, including 10,241 ZEC tokens valued at $11.69 million. The whale has been steadily accumulating MASK tokens over the past three days, purchasing a total of 3.69 million MASK tokens worth $151,000.
5 minutes ago
$ZEC Whale Buys 3.69M $MASK (Nullmask) ($151K) Over 3 Days
A $ZEC whale is buying $MASK (Nullmask)! This whale holds over $15M in assets, including 10,241 $ZEC ($11.69M). Over the past 3 days, he has been accumulating $MASK, buying a total of 3.69M $MASK ($151K).
Cover image via depositphotos.com 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.
In BriefStarknet (STRK): Trading at $0.0572 after falling more than half from its October high near $0.125, the token faces a key test at the blue moving average near $0.053.
Filecoin (FIL): Trading at $1.0146 after several red daily candles, the token is defending the $0.995 to $1.00 area within a still-intact uptrend.
Midnight (NIGHT): Trading at $0.0394 after a pullback from its $0.053 high, the token sits on the short green moving average near $0.0397 as the larger trend stays up.
HOT Stories
Near Protocol (NEAR): Trading at $4.908, the token is moving sideways between $4.60 and $5.40 while buyers keep defending support near $4.75.
Starknet (STRK) Sharp Drop After the October PeakStarknet (STRK) is trading at $0.0572 after a tough pullback. The token spent most of September close to $0.03, after which it started to climb. In October it exploded, reaching a top close to $0.125 around October 11. That was more than a fourfold gain from the September lows.
STRK/USDT Chart by TradingViewThe drop since then has been swift. STRK has posted several red daily candles in a row and has lost more than half of its peak value. Sellers took control right after the high, and every bounce has been weaker than the one before. The price has also fallen below the short green moving average, which now acts as resistance close to $0.063.
The next key area is the blue moving average close to $0.053. This level is near the current price, so a test of it seems likely. If it holds, STRK could stabilize and form a base.
If it breaks, the next supports sit near the black line around $0.046 and the orange line close to $0.044. These lines are rising, which means buyers have been in control of the larger trend.
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The RSI has cooled down from overbought levels above 80 and is now close to 48. This is a neutral reading. It suggests the heat from the rally is gone, but it does not yet show an oversold bounce.
For bulls, the primary goal is to defend $0.053 and then reclaim $0.063. A close above that would show that selling pressure is fading. For bears, a daily close below $0.053 would open the way to $0.046.
The trend is still positive on the bigger view, but the short-term move is down. After such a big rally, a deeper retest of the old breakout area close to $0.05 would be ordinary and would not break the larger structure.
Filecoin (FIL) Price Slips Filecoin (FIL) is trading at $1.0146 after several red daily candles. The token has been in an uptrend since early September, when it traded close to $0.65. It climbed gradually and reached a high close to $1.27 in mid-October. Since that top, FIL has formed lower highs and has dropped back towards the center of its recent range.
FIL/USDT Chart by TradingViewThe price has fallen below the short green moving average close to $1.06, which now blocks any brief recovery. Sellers have pushed the price down for approximately a week. The most important level now is the blue moving average close to $0.995. FIL touched this area on the most recent drop and bounced slightly, so buyers are trying to defend it.
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The $1.00 mark also works as a round number that many traders watch. A daily close below it would be a clear warning sign. If $1.00 fails, the next supports are the black line close to $0.96 and the orange line close to $0.92. These averages are rising, which keeps the larger trend positive. The area between $0.92 and $0.96 would be a strong zone for buyers to step in.
The RSI is close to 49, a neutral reading. It has dropped from higher levels but is not oversold. This means the price still has room to fall before a strong bounce signal appears.
For bulls, the plan is simple: hold $1.00 and then reclaim $1.06. A move back above that level would open the way to $1.15 and a new test of the $1.27 high. For bears, a clean break below $0.995 would shift focus to $0.96. FIL is still in a healthy uptrend, but momentum has turned down for now. The next couple of daily closes around $1.00 will show which side has control.
Midnight (NIGHT): Pullback Tests the Bulls' PatienceMidnight (NIGHT) is trading at $0.0394 after several red daily candles in a row. The token spent most of September between $0.020 and $0.026, then broke out hard at the end of the month. The rally pushed the price to a high close to $0.053 in early October, a gain of more than 100% from the lows.
NIGHT/USDT Chart by TradingViewSince that peak, NIGHT has made lower highs and lower lows. Buyers tried to push the price back up on October 10, but the move failed close to $0.050. Sellers have been in control for approximately a week, and the price has now fallen to the short green moving average close to $0.0397. The current candle sits right on this line, so it is a key test.
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If the green line breaks, the next support is the blue moving average close to $0.0347. Below that, the black line close to $0.0332 and the orange line close to $0.0312 form a strong support zone. All of these averages are rising, which suggests the larger trend is still up.
Volume tells an important story. It was very high during the breakout and has dropped considerably during the pullback. Low volume on a drop often means sellers are not very aggressive. The RSI has cooled from overbought levels and now sits close to 45, a neutral reading.
For bulls, the plan is to hold $0.039 and reclaim $0.042. A move above that would open the way to $0.046 and a new test of $0.050. For bears, a daily close below $0.0390 would shift focus to $0.0347. The short-term move is down, but the larger structure is still healthy. A retest of the blue average would be normal after such a sharp rally.
Near Protocol (NEAR) is Sideways Between $4.60 and $5.40Near Protocol (NEAR) is trading at $4.908 after a quiet few days. The token climbed from approximately $1.80 in early September to above $5.50 by the end of the month. In October, it reached a high close to $6.00 on October 11, but sellers pushed the price back down quickly. Since then, NEAR has moved sideways between $4.60 and $5.40.
NEAR/USDT Chart by TradingViewThe price keeps finding buyers close to the short green moving average, which sits near $4.75. The current candle once again bounced off this area, which suggests demand is still present. The $5.00 mark is the closest resistance and acts as a pivot for the next move.
If the green line fails, the next support is the blue moving average close to $4.15. Below that, the cyan line close to $3.95 and the orange line close to $3.35 provide more room for a deeper pullback. The black line close to $2.70 shows how far the trend has run. All of these averages point up, which keeps the larger picture positive.
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Volume has been falling during this pause. This often means the market is waiting for a clear direction. The RSI is close to 47, a neutral reading, so neither buyers nor sellers have a strong edge in momentum.
For bulls, the goal is to hold $4.75 and break above $5.40. A close above that level would open the way to $6.00 again. For bears, a daily close below $4.75 would point to $4.15 as the next target. NEAR remains in a healthy uptrend and is moving sideways, not breaking down. A decisive move out of the $4.75 to $5.40 range will likely set the direction for the coming days.
PANews, October 20 - According to SoSoValue data, the crypto market sectors saw an overall slight pullback, with the DePIN sector continuing its pullback, falling another 1.09% in 24 hours, and Filecoin (FIL) dropping 2.58%. The AI sector remained relatively resilient, rising 0.83% in 24 hours, with Quack AI (Q) up 15.51% and Worldcoin (WLD) up 9.27%. Meanwhile, the Layer2 sector rose 0.46%, with Arbitrum (ARB) up 5.12%.
In addition, Bitcoin (BTC) fell 0.97%, dropping back above $81,000; Ethereum (ETH) fell 1.08%, breaking below $2,400.
In other sectors, the CeFi sector rose 0.21% in 24 hours, with Bitget Token (BGB) up 1.06%; the Meme sector rose 0.01%, with Pons (PONS) up 5.22%; the DeFi sector fell 0.12%, but Bedrock Token (BR) surged 47.68%; the Layer1 sector fell 0.26%, with NEAR Protocol (NEAR) down 3.71%; the PayFi sector fell 0.83%, with Telcoin (TEL) down 3.67%.
NEAR Intents handled about $10.4 billion in Q3 2026, and NEAR Protocol is retaining a larger share of swap fees to fund $NEAR buybacks.
NEAR Protocol is capturing a growing share of the fees generated by its cross-chain swap product. @near_intents handled about $10.4 billion in volume in the third quarter, bringing lifetime volume to more than $32 billion, according to @NEARProtocol's Q3 report.
Lifetime fees topped $52 million, and more than $8 million of that went toward buying back $NEAR.
Retained share of fees risesThe portion of Intents fees that NEAR keeps reached 16.4% over its lifetime as of October 6. That compares with 11.5% in the second-quarter report. Over the past 30 days, the retained rate stood at 28.4%.
The distinction matters because the fees charged on swaps are not all kept by the protocol. DefiLlama's methodology separates gross fees, which include the protocol fee plus the affiliate fee each front end collects, from the revenue NEAR itself captures. According to DefiLlama, NEAR's captured Intents revenue has been used to buy back $NEAR on the open market since February 23, 2026, and the tokens are not burned.
Buybacks in contextBuyback activity has picked up alongside volume. Altcoin Buzz, citing DefiLlama data, reported that September's $1.84 million was the biggest monthly buyback so far. Different trackers count the buyback total differently, depending on whether they measure tokens or dollars and which wallets they include.
Some market participants have urged caution on what buybacks can achieve. Sal Ternullo, CEO of Nasdaq-listed NEAR treasury company SVRN, said on the Bankless podcast that buybacks are real, but that the network was issuing more than six times as much new NEAR as was bought back over the prior 30 days, according to Yahoo Finance. He also floated a governance proposal to cut maximum annual issuance from 2.5% to 1.6%.
For now, the Q3 figures show both swap volume and the protocol's retained share moving higher. Whether that is enough to offset token issuance will depend on how long volume stays elevated.
SourcesDefiLlama: NEAR Intents TVL, fees, revenue and volume
Altcoin Buzz: NEAR Intents buyback hits $6.68M
Yahoo Finance: NEAR treasury firm CEO on buybacks and issuance
