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Tokenized Commodities Need Proof of Reserves to Shine like GoldTokenized commodities beyond gold need proof of reserves and a reference price. How silver and copper compare, and what issuers need to build real markets.

Commodity tokenization grew from about $1.2 billion at the start of 2025 to about $5.5 billion by the end of Q1 2026, roughly four and a half times in 15 months. Tether Gold (XAUT) and Pax Gold (PAXG) produced close to 90% of that growth. Every other commodity divides a small remainder.

The usual explanation for the gap is that buyers don’t want these commodities on-chain yet. Demand exists. Silver gained about 140% in 2025, hit an all-time high above $121 in late January 2026, then fell back and traded roughly $68 to $93 in February and March. Copper is consumed in every EV, solar installation, and data center build. These are large, liquid physical markets with active buyers. That demand has no on-chain market that reflects it yet. Issuer economics and distribution play a part, but credible on-chain versions also need verifiable reserves and a reference price.

Tokenized commodities by market value, 2025 to 2026Monthly market value of tokenized commodities, stacked by token. XAUT is its on-chain circulating supply (total supply minus Tether’s own treasury holdings); Kinesis Gold is restated from Kinesis chain data where CoinGecko’s supply lagged; the rest use CoinGecko market caps. “Other” covers Kinesis Gold, Kinesis Silver and Matrixdock Gold only: before November 2025 these are the only other tokens in the series, and the smaller tokens CoinGecko lists from then on are left out. Matrixdock Gold is not available before July 2025 (CoinGecko shows $0 although the token existed), so those months cover the two Kinesis tokens only; that is a gap, not a zero. The dashed line marks 31 March 2026, the date cited in the text.Silver is the only metal beyond gold with meaningful on-chain traction. Kinesis Silver, by far the largest silver token, fell in value from $439 million in late January 2026 to $261 million at the end of March, and to $212 million by mid-October. That drop tracks the silver price. The holders stayed: Kinesis held about 3.69 million audited ounces in April 2026, only slightly below the 3.79 million of October 2024. Silver is also the only metal beyond gold carrying a full verification stack: allocated bullion, named custodians, independent audits.

Copper has the stronger long-term demand story and almost nothing on-chain: one token, last valued at about $0.5 million in May 2026, which tracks a copper futures fund rather than holding metal. The demand profiles differ. Industrial use was about 58% of silver demand in 2025, and coin and bar buying grew 14%. Copper demand is almost entirely industrial. Silver followed gold part of the way. Copper has no verification stack.

Kinesis Silver: USD value against audited ouncesAudited ounces held slipped 2.7%, from 3.79M (Oct 2024) to 3.69M (Apr 2026). USD value moved with the silver price. The chart shows Kinesis Silver (KAG) market value each month in USD (left axis), against the ounces of silver its audits counted (right axis). Ounces appear only in the four audit months, with nothing drawn in between, and both axes start at zero. 30 Jan and 31 Mar are the two dates the post quotes.PAXG sets the bar on reserves. It publishes monthly attestations and holds LBMA London Good Delivery bars. Its issuer, Paxos, has been supervised by the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency since converting to a federal trust charter in December 2025. Almost nothing outside gold clears that bar. Newer issuers attest periodically or not at all, and half of the 39 tokenized commodity products Tiger Research reviewed in February 2026 remain unregulated. The risks are specific: custodian failure, over-issuance when minting isn’t gated by verified reserves, and tokens that deliver price exposure without an enforceable claim on the underlying metal.

Pricing fails in a similar shape. Gold and silver have deep, continuously quoted spot markets that are straightforward to mirror on-chain. Copper is on the other hand harder. It trades continuously on the LME and COMEX, but that price data is proprietary and licensed. Platinum and palladium lean on twice-daily LBMA benchmark auctions, administered by ICE Benchmark Administration since July 2026, with much thinner liquidity in between. Neither maps cleanly onto a trustless feed. Price oracle coverage follows the same distribution: dense across the majors, thin across everything else.

Verification scorecard: six tokenized commoditiesWhat each issuer discloses about custody, attestation, redemption, regulation and on-chain proof of reserves. “not disclosed” means the issuer’s own pages do not say; “none” means no on-chain proof-of-reserves feed was found.The dormant end of the market shows that represented value alone does not create a market. Justoken’s tokenized electricity token (JMWH) on the XRP Ledger reports over $2 billion in represented value and about 165 holders. Its tokenized soybean-oil token (JSOY_OIL) on Polygon reports about $440 million with two holders and no transfers in the last month. Trading tells the same story: in the 30 days to 16 October, XAUT and PAXG each traded more than $4 billion, while JMWH did not trade at all and JSOY_OIL has no listing. Without verifiable reserves, credible pricing and liquidity, allocators have little basis to participate.

Regulators are moving in the same direction, though unevenly. Under MiCA, issuers of asset-referenced tokens, the category covering commodity-backed tokens in the EU, must disclose reserve composition at least monthly and commission an independent audit every six months. In the US, the March 2026 joint SEC/CFTC interpretation (Release 33-11412) set out a five-category token taxonomy with no category for tokens backed by physical commodities. Periodic disclosure is the regulatory floor in the EU, the US has none for these tokens yet, and continuous verification is where the market is heading.

Tokenized commodities: stated value against what tradesRepresented value is supply times the issuer’s NAV (per rwa.xyz), not a price anyone can trade at: JMWH shows $2.23B represented against about $4 of bids and no trades, and JSOY_OIL shows $438M represented with no listing. As of 16 Oct 2026, 00:00 UTC (order books and venue shares 12:42 to 13:20 UTC). Holders are addresses with a non-zero balance on the chain shown; the Kinesis figures count Kinesis-chain addresses, not users; platform users whose balances sit in Kinesis’s custodial omnibus accounts are not counted individually. * Excludes one venue showing a $40M book on $42K daily volume; including it, $145M. † Kinesis volume is reported only by CoinGecko; CoinMarketCap excludes Kinesis Money.Implemented properly, proof of reserve means independent nodes read reserve data at the custodian, reconcile it against on-chain supply, and publish a figure anyone can recompute directly from the contract.

It does not remove trust in the custodian. No oracle can prove a physical bar exists in a vault. What the mechanism changes is the frequency and visibility of the trust boundary: continuously checkable by anyone. Many verification claims in this category name no mechanism, so the boundary is worth stating directly.

The metals that need this layer most are the ones current coverage reaches least. Gold and silver are well served. Copper, platinum and palladium have far less, despite established custody and assay standards behind the physical metal.

DIA runs live feeds for gold, silver and copper, and builds custom feeds for platinum, palladium and other metals on request. DIA publishes its sourcing and methodology for each feed, so an issuer can audit how a price is computed before committing to it.

The reserve side runs the same way. Independent feeder nodes read reserve balances at the custodian, query token supply directly from the contract across every chain the token is deployed on, and publish a ratio, floored conservatively against supply, that any holder can recompute. Nothing in that path depends on the issuer relaying its own number, and it extends to a metals-backed token wherever there is a custodian and audit chain to read from. DIA already runs this live for tGBP, a GBP stablecoin.

Gold already has the trust infrastructure: verifiable reserves and a reference price. The next commodity issuer to build that stack has the best chance to create a real market, and the first to do it sets the reference an allocator later uses to judge every product that follows. Issuers planning a metals token can Talk to us about a proof of reserve and a price feed.

MemeToro has reported $163,467.81 raised in Stage 8 of its$ MT crypto presale, approaching the round's $176,896.90 target as the project details the tokenomics supporting its planned AI memecoin ecosystem on BNB Chain. The Stage 8 price is $0.00528 per$ MT. At $163,467.81 raised, another $13,429.09 would take the stage to its $176,896.90 target.

SINGAPORE, Oct. 16, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --

MemeToro has reported $163,467.81 raised in Stage 8 of its $MT crypto presale, approaching the round's $176,896.90 target as the project details the tokenomics supporting its planned AI memecoin ecosystem on BNB Chain.

The Stage 8 price is $0.00528 per $MT. MemeToro lists $0.05186 as its planned launch price. That figure is part of the project's launch plan and does not establish the price at which $MT will trade once exposed to open-market supply and demand.

The current token allocation assigns most of the 1.2 billion $MT supply to the public sale, with the remaining tokens divided between exchange reserves, marketing, trading, rewards and the team.

Stage 8 moves toward its round target

Stage 8 has reached approximately 90% of its stated funding target based on MemeToro's crypto presale latest figures.

At $163,467.81 raised, another $13,429.09 would take the stage to its $176,896.90 target.

Tokens in the current stage are priced at $0.00528. The presale structure establishes a price for the current round before the planned token launch.

MemeToro's stated $0.05186 launch price is separate from any future market price. Once a cryptocurrency begins open trading, liquidity, circulating supply, buyer and seller activity and wider market conditions can affect its value.

The presale is running while MemeToro develops the launchpad and AI infrastructure intended to form the wider use case for $MT.

Public sale receives 71% of the supply

MemeToro's corrected tokenomics put the total $MT supply at 1.2 billion tokens.

Of that amount, 852 million $MT, or 71%, is allocated to the public sale.

CEX reserves account for 120 million tokens, or 10% of supply. The marketing partner allocation is 90.72 million $MT, or 7.56%.

MemeToro Trading receives 60 million tokens, representing 5%, while 53.28 million $MT, or 4.44%, is assigned to MT Rewards.

The team allocation is 24 million $MT, or 2% of total supply.

The public-sale allocation is therefore considerably larger than any individual non-sale category.

The remaining supply has separate allocations

The 29% of supply outside the public sale is divided by function rather than placed into a single project allocation.

The 10% CEX reserve provides a distinct pool associated with centralized exchange requirements. MemeToro has separately designated tokens for its crypto presale, marketing partner, MemeToro Trading and MT Rewards.

The team holds the smallest named allocation at 2%.

These figures describe how the supply is divided. They should not be read as a vesting schedule or release timetable unless MemeToro separately publishes those conditions.

That distinction matters because allocation and circulating supply are different measures. A token can belong to a particular allocation without necessarily entering circulation at the same time as tokens in another category.

$MT is being designed around the MemeToro ecosystem

MemeToro is developing $MT alongside its AI Meme Launch Agent and BNB Chain launchpad rather than presenting the token as a standalone asset.

The project advertises staking rewards as one planned use within the $MT ecosystem. MemeToro is also developing a broader platform around AI-assisted memecoin creation, launches, market data and related crypto tools.

Its AI agent is intended to identify market signals and turn selected concepts into structured memecoin proposals. The launchpad is being designed to take approved proposals into funding rounds governed by smart contracts.

MemeToro has published working examples of this infrastructure through its open-source repository, although several components remain under development.

The extent to which those planned functions create demand for $MT will depend on the completed platform and its adoption. Presale participation does not guarantee future token value or liquidity.

About MemeToro

MemeToro is developing an open-source AI memecoin launchpad on BNB Chain. The project combines an AI Meme Launch Agent, fair-launch infrastructure, bonding curves, market analytics and planned $MT ecosystem functions.

The $MT crypto presale is currently in Stage 8. Cryptocurrency presales are speculative and carry a risk investors should research and make confident decisions.

More Information on MemeToro ($MT) Presale Here:

Website: https://memetoro.com/

X: https://x.com/memetoro_mt

Telegram: https://t.me/memetoro_mt

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gY0jgWy_DtA

Media contact:

MemeToro Team

[email protected]

MemeToro Hits $163,467.81 as Stage 8 Closes, $MT Public Sale and Memecoin Tokenomics

MemeToro Hits $163,467.81 as Stage 8 Closes, $MT Public Sale and Memecoin Tokenomics
Source: MemeToro

8 hours ago

Modular blockchain project Celestia has announced the launch of Eden, a high-performance EVM chain built on Celestia. Celestia says Eden will act as an experimental sandbox for "Agentic Commerce", used to test the behavior and infrastructure needs of AI agents when conducting on-chain autonomous payments, transactions, and model calls. Celestia notes that as AI agents start engaging in more frequent on-chain transactions, market demand for block space, real-time settlement, and low-friction payments will continue to rise. Eden will help teams observe what transaction environment agents need, how they manage funds, and how their on-chain activities will impact network design. Eden’s first experimental project is Botfun, which is currently in closed beta. Per Celestia, participating agents can issue their own tokens and trade around narratives generated by other agents; each model inference call is paid on-chain via x402. Celestia states this experiment briefly pushed Eden to become one of the largest x402 networks by transaction volume. Technically, Eden is an EVM-compatible chain supporting atomic batch transactions, application-sponsored gas payments, and larger smart contract deployments, with its native gas token being TIA. These designs will reduce signature and fee friction when agents execute consecutive payments, swaps, and interactions.

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Celestia’s TIA token rose about 16% in 24 hours on Friday after the launch of Eden, a high-throughput EVM chain built to explore agentic commerce. The project aims to address the need for greater blockspace and transaction infrastructure as AI agents increasingly interact and transact onchain.

TIA was trading at $0.68 at press time, after rising above $0.7 earlier Friday morning, according to CoinGecko.

Eden is built with the Evolve stack and supports existing Ethereum development tools, with TIA serving as its native gas token. It operates as a standalone execution network while posting data to Celestia mainnet for data availability.

https://twitter.com/celestia/status/2111054730038583485?s=20

The first Eden experiment was botfun, a closed beta in which AI agents launched tokens and traded based on narratives generated around them. Celestia said each inference call was paid for onchain using x402, briefly placing Eden among the largest chains by x402 transaction count. The experiment is expected to help the team understand agents’ onchain behavior and the infrastructure required to support more automated transactions.

Eden also introduces native batch transactions, sponsored gas payments and a 128 KB contract bytecode limit, compared with Ethereum’s 24 KB limit. Batch transactions combine multiple calls into one atomic transaction, while sponsored gas allows an application or third party to pay fees on a user’s behalf.

The features are designed to simplify multi-step transactions and onboarding without requiring additional account-abstraction or relayer systems.

Eden uses a single sequencer and no public mempool, making pending transactions less visible to third parties and reducing exposure to public frontrunning, according to the team. Transaction ordering remains under the sequencer’s control.

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

Celestia price has climbed above $0.70 as strengthening daily momentum and a bullish weekly trend put its recovery from a months-long trading range to the test.

Summary

TIA traded near $0.702 on Oct. 16, gaining approximately 19% during the daily session. Weekly RSI reached 64.98 as price moved above its previous consolidation. Daily MACD strengthened, with TIA trading above its 50-day and 200-day moving averages. CoinGlass showed a prominent overhead liquidation cluster around $0.725–$0.73. Celestia’s recovery has accelerated after spending much of the year trading near the bottom of a prolonged decline. Binance’s daily TIA/USDT chart showed the token at $0.7019 at 3:54 p.m. UTC on Oct. 16, following a session high of $0.7233.

The move has brought an earlier breakout call into focus. In an Oct. 16 post, analyst Rekt Capital described TIA as having confirmed a breakout from its “Macro Accumulation Range” and said it had rallied 50% since being discussed in its Altcoin Watchlist.

The daily chart supports the shift out of consolidation. TIA spent much of the spring and summer near $0.30–$0.40 before building higher prices through September and October. Its latest advance has carried it beyond the rebounds that stalled around $0.45–$0.50 earlier this year.

Celestia’s breakout has support across both timeframes TIA’s 50-day moving average stood at $0.4394, above its 200-day average at $0.3820. Price was trading roughly 60% above the shorter average, showing how quickly the rally has pulled away from its recent trend.

Celestia price daily chart — Oct. 16 | Source: TradingView That distance leaves room for a sizeable pullback even if the broader recovery survives. A retreat toward the recent $0.58–$0.60 trading area would erase part of the latest advance while keeping TIA above both moving averages.

Daily momentum still favors buyers. The MACD line reached 0.0504 against a signal line of 0.0368, with a positive histogram of 0.0136. Both lines were above zero, supporting a stronger upward trend rather than merely slowing losses.

The weekly chart adds weight to that reading. TIA was up approximately 21% from the week’s opening price, while RSI reached 64.98, above its smoothing line at 46.80. Momentum has moved firmly above the neutral midpoint without reaching the conventional overbought threshold of 70.

Celestia price weekly chart — Oct. 16 | Source: TradingView Weekly Supertrend also showed a bullish reading, with its active green line at $0.2706. That level sits well below the market, making the recent weekly low near $0.505 a closer reference for assessing whether the breakout is losing ground.

Celestia has produced sharp rebounds before. A July 2025 rally took TIA up 14% alongside a descending-channel breakout, but the longer price history shows that recovery eventually gave way to further declines. The current advance has stronger alignment between daily momentum and weekly trend signals, though holding above the former range remains essential.

Fibre adds context while $0.73 becomes the immediate test Celestia’s development progress provides a separate backdrop to the price recovery. On Oct. 1, Celestia Labs reported that Fibre sustained average throughput of 3.07 terabits per second across 120 validators during a 143-second benchmark.

The team said the test used an experimental performance branch and settings that would not all be available in the initial mainnet release. The result measures tested capacity rather than current customer usage.

Celestia’s earlier mamo-1 testnet targeted 128MB blocks every six seconds in April 2025. Fibre extends the project’s work on handling larger volumes of blockchain data, although the latest price move cannot be attributed to that announcement alone.

For the immediate trading setup, CoinGlass’s 24-hour liquidation heatmap places the brightest overhead concentration around $0.725–$0.73, just above the session high. A sustained move through that band would put the next visible cluster near $0.74 within reach.

Solana liquidation heatmap | Source: CoinGlass Below price, liquidation bands appear around $0.68–$0.685 and across $0.66–$0.67, where TIA consolidated during its intraday climb. Losing those areas would increase the risk of a deeper retracement toward $0.63 and the earlier $0.60 breakout area.

Holding above $0.66–$0.68 would preserve the latest advance’s higher-price structure. Clearing $0.73 would strengthen the continuation case, while a return below $0.60 would put the durability of the breakout under greater pressure.

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

SEI perpetual futures have been certified by a CFTC-regulated US exchange. The USD-settled contracts trade 24/7 with no expiry, while three SEI ETFs await SEC progress.

A CFTC-regulated exchange has certified $SEI perpetual futures, @SeiNetwork announced on October 16. The contracts settle in US dollars, trade around the clock and have no expiry date, placing SEI alongside BTC, ETH, SOL and XRP among assets with perpetual futures on CFTC-regulated venues.

What the filing shows The filing was submitted by North American Derivatives Exchange, which operates as OG.com Markets, and the exchange said it intended to list the contract by October 12. According to the exchange's certification document, the contract is settled in US dollars, has no expiration date and tracks the token's spot price through a reference index. The filing also specifies margin requirements and periodic funding adjustments meant to keep futures prices aligned with the underlying market.

Certification is different from a formal approval. Under CFTC rules, a designated contract market can list new products by self-certifying compliance with the Commodity Exchange Act, filing the product terms at least one business day before launch. Trading availability, liquidity and volumes for the SEI contract have not been confirmed, and the listing does not guarantee fresh demand for the token or sustained price gains.

The product adds a regulated route to SEI exposure without holding the token directly. It is designed to let traders take long or short positions without directly holding the token.

US perps market and SEI ETFsUS-regulated perpetuals are a recent development. On May 28, 2026, the CFTC approved the first perpetual futures contract cleared on a US-regulated exchange, a cash-settled Bitcoin perpetual listed by Kalshi. Perpetual futures have no expiration date and have become the dominant form of crypto derivatives trading globally, but were largely unavailable on regulated US exchanges.

On the ETF side, three SEI products from REX-Osprey, Canary Capital and 21Shares are still in the SEC process. REX Shares and Osprey Funds have set October 23 as the target effective date for their proposed fund, after filing a post-effective amendment on Sept. 24. The proposed REX-Osprey $SEI + Staking ETF would hold $SEI and stake part of its holdings through Sei Network's proof-of-stake system. 21Shares filed with the SEC to launch an ETF tracking the price of SEI, following Canary Capital's similar application in April 2025.

Together, a regulated derivatives product and pending exchange-traded funds would give US investors more compliant ways to gain exposure to SEI, though none of the ETFs has yet been confirmed as launched.

Sources

The Crypto Times: SEI joins BTC, ETH, SOL with US-regulated perpetual futuresTron Weekly: SEI perpetual futures gain CFTC certificationCryptonews: REX, Osprey set Oct. 23 target for staked SEI ETF

5 hours ago

Beating AI Insight News Brief: US AI firm Reflection has uploaded the weights of its first large language model Beam 1.0 to Hugging Face, fulfilling its October 5 announcement. The model uses a Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) architecture, has a total of 501 billion parameters, with around 23 billion activated per inference, and supports a 1 million-token context window. Three versions—BF16, FP8, and NVFP4—are released simultaneously under the Apache 2.0 license, allowing commercial use and secondary development. Reflection also open-sourced its accompanying programming agent framework Mirror CLI, which supports tool calling, parallel task execution by multiple agents, and custom model interfaces. The company additionally launched DFlash2, a model accelerator that generates multiple candidate tokens in advance for validation by the main model. The vLLM team optimized Beam’s underlying code using the programming agent: on 8 GB200 GPUs, the per-step computation time for single-request decoding dropped from 8.95 milliseconds to 3.30 milliseconds, reaching 2.71 times the speed of the initial version. The release is backed by over 40 partners including AWS, Google Cloud, and NVIDIA. A recent independent evaluation by Artificial Analysis scored it 30 points, ranking second among open-weight models in the US, trailing only Meta’s Muse Spark Open (39 points). However, it falls behind Chinese models such as DeepSeek V4 Flash (39 points) and Zhipu GLM-5.3 (45 points). Reflection is valued at approximately $25 billion. On October 10, the Financial Times reported that NVIDIA, which has already invested around $800 million, is discussing further capital injection or an acquisition of Reflection.

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Starknet now has a velvet rope. The Starknet Foundation introduced the Starknet VIP Program on October 16, 2026, and it targets holders of the network’s native STRK token and strkBTC, its Bitcoin wrapper asset.

According to the program’s page at vip.starknet.io, the program is now open to supported STRK and strkBTC holders.

What VIP status actually gets you The perks lean toward access rather than cash. Qualifying holders are set to receive priority support, direct interaction with the Foundation team, confirmed access to events, and additional benefits the Foundation has yet to disclose.

The program covers two assets with different jobs. STRK serves as Starknet’s governance and staking token, and it is also used to pay fees on the network. In practical terms, STRK is how you vote, how you stake, and how you pay for transactions.

strkBTC is the newer piece. It launched in May 2026 as a wrapped version of Bitcoin built for Starknet’s DeFi applications.

strkBTC was initially secured by a federation of institutions. It also includes optional shielding, which lets users keep certain transactions private.

The Bitcoin push behind the perks The VIP Program did not arrive in a vacuum. It follows a string of Bitcoin-focused moves as Starknet works to build out what the industry calls BTCFi, or decentralized finance built around Bitcoin.

In late 2025, Starknet distributed 100 million STRK as part of its push toward Bitcoin integration.

More recently, the network ran a program covering bridging fees for the first 100 BTC moved onto Starknet.

There is also a weekly strkBTC faucet worth approximately $833.

Starknet recently launched v0.14.4 on mainnet, and the VIP Program arrives in the middle of that ongoing upgrade cycle.

What this means for holders and the network On the market side, research findings note a 47% increase in STRK’s value shortly after the announcement, a move linked to interest in BTCFi and privacy upgrades.

There are open questions worth watching. The Foundation has not yet published eligibility thresholds or how long the program will run.

strkBTC’s security model also bears watching. Because it was initially secured by a federation of institutions, users are trusting that group to manage the underlying Bitcoin.

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

Tokenized Equities Reached $3.8 Billion This Year, DWF Labs Says

Post-quantum signatures have a weight problem. They typically run 10 to 100 times larger than the classical signatures that blockchains rely on today.

On October 16, 2026, LayerZero Labs unveiled Aerie, a system built to put those signatures on a diet. The research was developed with a16z crypto research, Carnegie Mellon University, and Imperial College London.

What Aerie actually does
Aerie is a signature aggregation system that combines large batches of Falcon signatures, which NIST has standardized as FN-DSA, into a single compact proof. Under the hood, it relies on a lattice-based polynomial commitment scheme called Akita.

The headline benchmarks are notable. Aerie aggregated 32,768 Falcon-512 signatures in 0.65 seconds, and 16,384 Falcon-1024 signatures in 0.63 seconds.

Those runs happened on an Apple M4 Max MacBook Pro using only CPU cores. No GPU acceleration was involved.

Throughput lands at roughly 46,000 Falcon-512 signatures per second. Peak memory use during processing came in at 2.1 GiB.

On size, the aggregated proofs work out to approximately 42 bytes per signature. The team says that is 16 times smaller than its predecessors.

Verification also gets quicker. Checking an Aerie proof is 10 times faster than verifying each signature individually on a single core.

How it stacks up against earlier work
Aerie is not the first attempt at this problem. The research compares it directly against Orthus, an earlier signature aggregation system, on comparable hardware.

It delivers 1.5 times faster proving, 38 times faster verification, and proofs that are 1.7 times smaller.

The research also says Aerie compares favorably to Ethereum’s leanVM approach in terms of network throughput.

Why signature size became the bottleneck
Most blockchains secure accounts and consensus with elliptic curve cryptography. Schemes like Ed25519 and BLS are compact and fast, which is a big reason they became the default.

The catch is that sufficiently capable quantum computers pose a serious risk to elliptic curve and RSA-based systems. That threat has pushed the industry toward NIST-standardized post-quantum alternatives such as ML-DSA and FN-DSA.

BLS signatures also have a party trick that most post-quantum schemes lack: they aggregate efficiently, letting many validators’ approvals collapse into one.

Falcon sits in an interesting spot. Among the NIST candidates, its signatures are relatively small, but it lacked practical aggregation capabilities until now.

What this means for blockchains planning a quantum migration
LayerZero frames Aerie as a migration path to post-quantum security that does not require specialized hardware.

Running on a consumer laptop’s CPU at sub-second speeds suggests that low-latency post-quantum consensus may be achievable without raising the bar for participation. The researchers present the results as a demonstration of that potential rather than a finished, deployed product.

Roughly 42 bytes per signature after aggregation is a far more manageable figure than the raw sizes that have made post-quantum migration look painful.

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

The new swaps track Trade.xyz perpetual markets on Hyperliquid, with Ripple Prime taking the other side of each trade and accepting RLUSD as collateral.

Ripple Prime now offers institutions 24/7 swaps tied to perpetual futures on Hyperliquid

Posted October 16, 2026 at 6:26 am ET.

Ripple Prime, Ripple’s institutional prime brokerage, now lets clients hold positions on stocks, indices, commodities and currencies at any hour through swaps tied to perpetual futures on Hyperliquid, Ripple announced on Oct. 15.

Market maker Virtu is one of the institutions already using the product. The swaps track more than 100 markets across stocks, stock indices, ETFs, metals, energy and currencies, and they trade and settle 24/7, weekends included.

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How the Swaps Work Clients do not trade on Hyperliquid themselves. Ripple Prime enters each swap as principal, and the contract’s value follows a perpetual futures market that Trade.xyz lists on the decentralized derivatives exchange. Perpetual futures never expire, so a position stays open for as long as the trader keeps it funded.

Because the swaps sit inside a client’s Ripple Prime account, they can be cross-margined against the other asset classes the firm handles. Clients can also post Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin as collateral, though Ripple said availability depends on the jurisdiction. The company pitched the result as one counterparty and one consolidated view of margin and risk.

“RWA swaps are where traditional and digital markets meet,” said Michael Higgins, Ripple Prime’s international CEO, in the announcement. He added that institutions want exposure to equities, commodities and currencies “with the round-the-clock access and efficiencies of digital infrastructure.”

Scotte Moegling, Virtu’s head of business development for digital assets, said in the same release that Ripple Prime’s cross-margining helps the trading firm “expand our presence more efficiently as markets move toward round-the-clock access.”

One License for Now For now, the product is available only through Ripple Prime’s CIV BVI license. More regions are planned, Ripple said, though it didn’t say which.

The launch builds on Ripple Prime’s earlier move onto the venue. In February, it added support for Hyperliquid so clients could margin onchain derivatives alongside their other holdings.

Trade.xyz’s lineup on Hyperliquid already includes an officially licensed S&P 500 perpetual, which debuted in March after S&P Dow Jones Indices granted the license.

Related Listen: The NYSE CEO Calls Hyperliquid ‘Bigger Than the Nasdaq’: Uneasy Money

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

Ripple Prime, the institutional brokerage division of Ripple, has introduced a new prime brokerage offering that allows clients to maintain perpetual positions across multiple asset classes—including stocks, commodities, indices, and foreign exchange—at any hour. The feature, announced on October 15, leverages swaps tied to perpetual futures listed on Hyperliquid, a decentralized derivatives exchange.

Expanded asset access through perpetual swapsVirtu, a leading global market-making firm, is among the first institutions to adopt Ripple Prime’s new product. These swaps provide exposure to more than 100 different markets, covering equities, indices, exchange-traded funds, metals, energy products, and forex pairs. Trading and settlement are available continuously, including weekends, enabling institutions to respond instantly to market developments worldwide.

Clients interact with these swaps entirely through their Ripple Prime account; they do not trade directly on Hyperliquid. Ripple Prime acts as principal for each swap contract, mirroring the pricing and performance of perpetual futures markets listed on the Hyperliquid platform by Trade.xyz.

Perpetual futures, which have no expiration, allow clients to keep positions open indefinitely as long as required margin is maintained. This flexibility supports various trading strategies and round-the-clock engagement across traditional and digital markets.

Swaps held in a Ripple Prime account can be cross-margined against other supported assets, which helps institutions optimize capital efficiency and risk management. Clients may post Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin as collateral for these positions, although this feature’s availability depends on local regulations and client jurisdiction. The company emphasized its approach of offering a single counterparty framework with unified margin and risk visibility.

FeatureRipple Prime SwapsTraditional HoursTrading hours24/7, including weekendsLimited to exchange hoursAssets coveredStocks, indices, ETFs, commodities, forexVaries by venueSettlementContinuousClearing cyclesCollateral typeRLUSD stablecoin, othersUsually fiat, securitiesIndustry perspectives and global rolloutMichael Higgins, Ripple Prime’s international CEO, commented on the launch, noting the convergence between traditional and digital markets through the new swaps. He highlighted institutions’ growing demand for access to asset classes like equities, commodities, and currencies, combined with the continuous access and operational efficiencies made possible by digital infrastructures.

Ripple Prime’s international CEO Michael Higgins described RWA swaps as the meeting point of digital and traditional markets, emphasizing that institutional clients increasingly seek full-time access and the benefits of digital infrastructure for a broader set of assets.

Scotte Moegling, Virtu’s head of business development for digital assets, stated that the cross-margin capabilities in Ripple Prime’s platform allow the trading firm to increase its efficiency as financial markets transition toward non-stop trading.

Virtu’s Scotte Moegling underscored the importance of cross-margining, saying it allows the company to support an expanding global presence and adapt quickly as institutional trading becomes more continuous.

Regional rollout and earlier stepsCurrently, access to the new swaps offering is available only under Ripple Prime’s CIV BVI regulatory license. Ripple intends to expand into additional jurisdictions, but did not specify a timeline or regions in the initial announcement.

This development follows Ripple Prime’s February integration with Hyperliquid, which initially enabled clients to collateralize onchain derivatives within the same account as other asset classes. The new product further extends these cross-asset and cross-platform capabilities.

Trade.xyz, the company listing these perpetual markets on Hyperliquid, already offers an officially licensed S&P 500 perpetual contract. This product, which debuted in March, was launched after S&P Dow Jones Indices granted express licensing approval. Hyperliquid, as a decentralized trading platform, enables users to trade derivatives without an intermediary, supporting increased accessibility and transparency.

Mini dictionary: Hyperliquid is a decentralized derivatives exchange offering continuous, onchain trading of perpetual futures contracts across multiple asset classes, providing non-stop market access outside traditional exchange hours.

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

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

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

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Dacity Coin Spikes on GTA VI Trailer, Trading Against Tokenized Take-Two Stock

German multinational Deutsche Bank is just weeks away from its crypto custody service, according to reports. 

The lender — which is Germany’s biggest — also plans to expand the custody platform into Asia next year, according to a Friday Reuters report, which quoted its corporate banking chief. 

Top banks worldwide are debuting or planning to debut crypto custody services, with BNY Mellon, State Street, Standard Chartered, U.S. Bank, and Citigroup all committing to direct crypto custody over the past 18 months.

Deutsche Bank first officially announced plans to debut a bitcoin custody service for European corporate and institutional clients in September, with the German multinational at the time saying service was subject to the completion of the applicable regulatory timeline.

Friday’s report added that the service will support custody of major ⁠cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin before moving to services that help clients move money into and out of ⁠stablecoins.

Gerald Podobnik, co-head of the corporate ⁠bank, was quoted by Reuters saying that the financial system will need to “offer tokenized or blockchain solutions.” 

A number of top banks have started using the technology that powers bitcoin, the blockchain, for their own products in recent years. 

Stablecoins and tokenization in particular have become a hot topic as traditional financial firms aim to accelerate certain services. 

Crypto custody is often a starting point for banks moving into the digital asset space. BNY Mellon in 2022 became the first major U.S. bank to offer digital asset custody services.  

Banks like Citi and Standard Chartered have this year debuted or announced plans for bitcoin custody around the world. 

Mathew Di Salvo

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

A year after crypto’s historic crash, leveraged trading has yet to regain its old swagger. But the appetite for outsize bets hasn’t disappeared. Increasingly, the machinery that made crypto notorious for speculation is being turned on stocks, commodities and other traditional assets rather than just digital tokens.

New data from Talos show the shift. Across five major trading venues, total open interest in perpetual futures — a gauge of outstanding speculative positions — has fallen to about $67 billion from $81 billion over the past year. Yet open interest in contracts tied to so-called real-world assets has gone from virtually nothing to $9 billion, claiming 14% of the total across those venues.

The retreat from crypto-native bets has been broad. Bitcoin perpetuals have shed roughly $8 billion in open interest, Ether $5 billion and smaller tokens another $10 billion. Growth in contracts linked to traditional assets has only partly offset those losses, suggesting crypto’s speculative machinery is finding new uses even as traders show less appetite for leveraged bets on digital tokens.

“What’s particularly striking is that while overall perpetual futures open interest remains below last October’s levels, the composition of the market has changed considerably,” said Samar Sen, head of international markets at Talos.

The shift has unfolded in the shadow of last year’s Oct. 10 crash, when crypto suffered one of the biggest deleveraging events in its history where about $19 billion of leveraged bets in the perpetual futures market were wiped out in 24 hours.

The damage went beyond the one-day liquidation event. Leverage remained subdued even as crypto prices staged a recovery rally from August 2026, with investors still contending with higher rates, geopolitical risks and uncertainty around US crypto legislation. Bitcoin slipped roughly 2% to around $81,700 on Thursday.

“What looks like calm is really a stalemate. Rates, CLARITY delays and Middle East risk weigh on price, while ETF demand and risk appetite keep absorbing the pressure. All it takes is one side to tire for price to break out,” Yuan Rong Tan, head of ALM at QCP, wrote in a recent report.

This points to a broader structural shift in derivatives markets, with crypto-native trading infrastructure increasingly being used to gain exposure to traditional financial assets, Sen said. “As the boundaries between traditional and digital asset markets continue to blur, this suggests the next phase of growth may increasingly come from assets beyond crypto itself,” he added.

It also reflects a broader maturation of digital assets. Years of institutional adoption and closer links with Wall Street have made crypto easier for mainstream investors to access, while reducing some of the distinct speculative character that once defined the market.

“You’re probably not going to see the same kind of crazy activity you saw in the past, because the asset class has matured. In a positive sense, it has matured. In a less flattering sense, it has become a little boring,” said Yoshi Yokokawa, CEO of Alpaca.

Kacper Szafran, founder of MNRT, the Malta-based firm behind the M-Squared multi-manager fund, said the shakeout is also forcing investors to become more selective.

“The altcoin market isn’t dead, but a large majority of tokens have no reason to exist and will trend toward zero,” Szafran said. “We’re finally reaching a stage of market maturity in which investors place more value on projects whose token economics are tied to actual usage, revenues and clear value accrual rather than on speculation alone.”

US stock market sees "Black Friday": Nasdaq falls more than 2%, AI-related stocks decline across the board.

According to BIT (bit.com) market data, the U.S. Nasdaq index’s decline widened to 2.36%, the S&P 500 fell 1.19%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.58%. Individual stocks posted losses: SPCX fell 2.24%, ORCL dropped 4.42%, GOOGL declined 2.27%, NVDA fell 0.95%, and TSLA dropped 2.97%. For other AI-related concept stocks: Optical module stocks: COHR fell 6.26%, LITE dropped 3.87%, AAOI declined 7.89%, NOK fell 2.51%, MRVL dropped 4.2%; Storage stocks: SKHY fell 6.13%, MU dropped 4.33%, SNDK declined 5.3%, WDC fell 5.16%, STX dropped 5.97%.

2 hours ago

The Nasdaq’s decline in US stocks widened to 2.2%, with the S&P 500 falling over 1%.

According to market data from BIT (bit.com), the Nasdaq extended its decline to 2.2%, the S&P 500 fell 1.11%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.54%.

2 hours ago

Bitcoin drops below $81,000, Ethereum falls below $2,400

According to HTX market data, Bitcoin has dropped below $81,000, with a current price of $80,936. Ethereum has fallen below $2,400, now priced at $2,397.

2 hours ago

US crypto-related stocks fell broadly, with Strategy (MSTR) dropping nearly 10%.

According to BIT (bit.com) market data, U.S. crypto-related stocks fell broadly, with individual declines as follows: Strategy (MSTR) down 9.9%, Strive (ASST) down 7.97%, SharpLink (SBET) down 6.46%, Bitmine (BMNR) down 6.87%, Bullish (BLSH) down 7.09%, Gemini (GEMI) down 4.90%, Circle (CRCL) down 5.65%, and Coinbase (COIN) down 4.5%.

2 hours ago

Trump: Oil prices will fall soon, and he hopes the Russia-Ukraine conflict will end.

US President Donald Trump delivered a recent speech on the Russia-Ukraine conflict and Middle East issues, stating: "I know some details of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and I will make them public at some point. I hope it ends. The Biden administration has done a lot of bad things on the Ukraine issue." When asked about inflation, Trump again claimed: "Oil prices will drop soon. Israel has provided very significant assistance to Saudi Arabia, and the Abraham Accords are once again a topic in Saudi Arabia." (Jinshi)

2 hours ago

NEAR Intents announces progress on its vulnerability incident: Attackers exploited a flaw in deposit notifications to generate fake balances, and all funds have been returned.

Cross-chain swap protocol NEAR Intents has released a post-mortem report on its recent vulnerability incident, disclosing that the $3.8 million asset extraction stemmed from a flaw in its deposit notification function. Attackers created smart contracts intentionally causing notification failures, resulting in deposited tokens being refunded while the protocol’s internal ledger still recorded the corresponding balance. Over 23 failed deposit transactions, the attackers accumulated $3.8 million in fake, unbacked balances, then withdrew real tokens between September 29 and October 1, transferring them to other blockchains via Omni infrastructure. Alex Shevchenko, general manager of NEAR Intents, emphasized the vulnerability resided in NEAR Intents’ contracts, not Omni’s infrastructure. The protocol added that the attacker repaid all funds within 36 hours of the bug being identified, and affected users have received full compensation. The team has since enhanced balance monitoring mechanisms and permanently removed the vulnerable function on October 7. Additionally, a security researcher who discovered the critical vulnerability was awarded a $300,000 bounty.

2 hours ago

Bitcoin traded near $81,400 on Oct. 16 after rebounding from a weekly low of $79,800, leaving its recovery dependent on holding the 50-day moving average and breaking a pattern of lower highs.

Summary

Bitcoin hovered near its 50-day moving average at $81,279 after slipping below $80,000 this week.
Trader Ardi identified $84,200 as the level needed to break the local bearish structure.
Weekly RSI held above 50, while the daily chart showed weaker short-term momentum.
CoinGlass’s one-week heatmap showed a large overhead liquidation cluster around $84,300–$84,700.

Bitcoin’s daily chart showed a price of $81,345.75, down 1.09% for the session, at 5:38 p.m. UTC. The weekly chart captured a minute later placed BTC at $81,449.99, down 2.77% from the week’s opening price.

The rebound above $80,000 has preserved a nearby support area, but Bitcoin has struggled to build on it. Following September’s advance toward $87,000, successive recovery attempts have stalled below the previous peaks, bringing price back toward its rising 50-day average.

Trader Ardi focused on that deteriorating structure in an Oct. 16 X post, arguing that calls for higher prices were running ahead of the evidence.

“Until we break $84.2K, you simply need to respect that the local swing structure is still bearish.”

Ardi said a break above that pivot would prompt him to consider long positions toward the top of the trading range. His bullish scenario therefore depends on Bitcoin first clearing resistance rather than simply bouncing from support.

Bitcoin’s recovery runs into a familiar $82,000 hurdle
The first obstacle sits closer to the current price. Bitcoin needs to regain $82,000 and sustain the recovery through the latest daily high near $82,941 before Ardi’s $84,200 threshold comes into view.

The $82,000 area has already featured in analysts’ assessments this month. In comments reported on Oct. 1, ViaBTC chief analyst Jeff Ko and Bitget Wallet research lead Lacie Zhang identified it as an important support level. Zhang warned that losing the $82,000–$82,500 zone could accelerate a decline toward $80,000, according to the report on Bitcoin’s October support. crypto.news

Bitcoin has since traded through that downside area. Recovering the former support would give the rebound more substance, while another rejection would leave the recent sequence of lower highs intact.

Crypto analyst Jesse Olson also maintained a cautious view in an Oct. 16 post.

“BTC remains bearish on the daily chart.”

Olson said Bitcoin was heading toward the lowest daily candle close of the correction. His assessment focused on the closing-price trend, which remained under pressure despite the recovery from the weekly low.

The 50-day average faces a close test
The daily chart places Bitcoin’s 50-day moving average at $81,279, only about $67 below the displayed price. Bitcoin is therefore testing a trend reference that has risen beneath the market during the recovery from August.

Bitcoin price daily chart — Oct. 16 | Source: TradingView
Holding that average would preserve a nearby base for another attempt at $82,000. A sustained break below it would instead put the week’s $79,800 low back in focus.

The daily Aroon indicator favors caution. Aroon Up stood at 0%, while Aroon Down reached 92.86%, showing that a recent low dominates the indicator’s 14-session window while a fresh high remains absent.

That reading fits the retreat from the September and early October peaks. Price has returned to support without first breaking the downward sequence identified by Ardi.

The longer daily trend has more room beneath it. Bitcoin’s 200-day moving average stood at $72,397, well below the immediate trading area, while the 50-day average remained above it following an earlier bullish crossover.

The current test is consequently concentrated around the faster average and recent price lows. Losing $80,000 would weaken the September recovery before it threatened the more distant 200-day trend reference.

Weekly momentum holds up better than the daily structure
Bitcoin’s weekly chart offers a less bearish picture. The relative strength index stood at 56.39, above both the neutral 50 level and its displayed average of 51.80.

Bitcoin price weekly chart — Oct. 16 | Source: TradingView
Weekly momentum has therefore retained some strength even as the daily price structure has weakened. The RSI has recovered from its midyear lows, although it remains below the stronger readings reached during earlier advances.

The weekly Supertrend also remained green, with its active line near $66,812. Bitcoin traded well above that level, keeping the indicator’s broader bullish signal intact.

The distance to that line means it offers little protection against a further near-term decline. Bitcoin could lose its immediate support while the weekly Supertrend remains positive.

For the recovery case, the more useful confirmation would come from price clearing the recent lower highs while weekly RSI stays above 50. Until then, the stronger weekly readings coexist with a daily correction.

Liquidation clusters build above the market
CoinGlass’s one-week liquidation heatmap showed its brightest overhead concentration around $84,300–$84,700, just above Ardi’s breakout threshold. Smaller clusters appeared near $83,300–$83,700.

Bitcoin liquidation heatmap | Source: CoinGlass
Those estimated liquidation levels give a recovery through $84,200 an additional derivatives-market hurdle. Reaching the larger cluster could expose short positions to forced closures, although the heatmap does not establish that price will move toward it.

Below the market, visible concentrations extended through roughly $80,000 and $79,000–$79,500. A renewed loss of the weekly low would bring that lower area into the downside scenario.

U.S. inflation remains part of the backdrop. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that September consumer prices rose 3.7% annually, up from 3.4% in August. Before the release, BTSE chief operating officer Jeff Mei had warned that hotter inflation could send Bitcoin below $80,000 in comments on the inflation risk to Bitcoin.

Bitcoin’s immediate test remains the $81,279 average and the $79,800 weekly low. Holding that base leaves room for another recovery attempt, but a sustained break above $84,200 would be needed to challenge Ardi’s bearish local outlook.

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

Gracy Chen, CEO of the cryptocurrency exchange Bitget, made noteworthy statements regarding the future of the altcoin market. Arguing that the cryptocurrency sector struggles to innovate internally, Chen specifically noted that many Layer-1 and Layer-2 projects have failed to create real-world use cases. The experienced executive also warned that Bitcoin could face significant risks under current market conditions.

In an interview with New Era Finance, Chen assessed the development of the cryptocurrency sector in recent years, stating that despite its increasing integration with traditional finance, the sector has not been able to generate enough innovation within its own ecosystem.

According to Chen, some blockchain projects that have reached market capitalization of billions of dollars have a very limited user and developer base despite their high valuations. The executive added that the number of daily active developers on some networks remains in single or double digits.

Chen stated that the problems in the altcoin ecosystem are not limited to blockchain infrastructures alone, adding that sectors like GameFi, SocialFi, and NFTs, which generated great expectations in the past, have also failed to deliver on their promises.

Chen stated that SocialFi projects haven’t been able to truly compete with platforms like Facebook or TikTok, and that blockchain-based games struggle to compete with traditional games, adding that many projects in the NFT sector are failing to generate lasting value.

Chen stated that the number of projects capable of ensuring long-term sustainability in these sectors is quite limited, and that many initiatives have lost their operations or are gradually weakening.

However, the Bitget CEO is not entirely pessimistic about the future of the cryptocurrency sector. According to Chen, the biggest opportunities for the sector lie in the integration of the traditional financial system with blockchain technology.

Chen argued that areas such as stablecoins, real-world asset tokenization (RWA), and cross-border payments have strong growth potential, noting that these technologies offer solutions to concrete problems.

Chen added that for the cryptocurrency sector to regain strong growth, it needs to develop applications that respond to real user needs.

2022 Warning for Bitcoin: Could Another Crash Occur? In the interview, Chen also evaluated Bitcoin’s current price movements, noting that optimism in the cryptocurrency market changes quite rapidly.

Chen argued that the recent rise in Bitcoin’s price was not supported by an equally strong improvement in fundamental indicators, and stated that he did not define the current market situation as either a classic bull market or a traditional bear market.

Chen described the current period as a “monkey market” due to the constant up and down of prices.

Bitget CEO, particularly warning investors about highly leveraged trading, stated that Bitcoin could experience sharp price movements in the near future.

According to Chen, considering Bitcoin’s four-year cycle, the year 2026 has characteristics similar to the bear market of 2022 rather than the beginning of a new bull market.

Chen stated that if this similarity continues, a new unexpected event similar to the FTX crash could occur, warning that such a development could push the Bitcoin price to even lower levels.

On the other hand, Chen believes that Bitcoin has significant upside potential in the long term. The executive stated that if developments such as growth in the global money supply, institutional adoption, and countries starting to use Bitcoin as a reserve asset occur, Bitcoin has the potential to reach $1 million by 2035.

*This is not investment advice.

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In brief
MSCI finalized a rule treating “non-operating companies” as ineligible for its Global Investable Market Indexes, effective Nov. 30, using a core screen plus a five-ratio exclusion test.
The change targets Bitcoin treasury firms like Strategy and Metaplanet whose balance sheets are dominated by crypto, and scraps a temporary 2025 reprieve for companies with 50%+ digital-asset holdings; the affected list comes Nov. 11.
Removal would force index-tracking funds to sell the shares; Saylor called the rule “discriminatory
MSCI has finalized a rule change that threatens to boot Bitcoin treasury companies like Michael Saylor’s Strategy from its widely tracked equity indexes, a move that could cut off a significant source of passive investment demand for their shares.

In an announcement dated Oct. 15, the index provider said it will treat “non-operating companies” as ineligible for inclusion in the MSCI Global Investable Market Indexes, implementing a proposal it floated in August with minor modifications. The change takes effect at the close of Nov. 30 as part of MSCI’s November index review.

Will Strategy hold over 1M BTC before 2027? Click to make your prediction.The new methodology screens for corporate issuers that lack substantial operating assets and behave more like passive investment vehicles than real businesses. Companies that fail an initial “core screen” are then run through an exclusion test based on five financial ratios; a stock gets flagged as ineligible if it trips four or more of them.

The rule is aimed squarely at firms whose balance sheets are dominated by a single asset, the model pioneered by Saylor’s Strategy, which holds hundreds of thousands of Bitcoin, and adopted by Japan’s Metaplanet and a wave of imitators.

To limit index churn, MSCI built in buffers: current index constituents will only be removed if they fail the screen in each of their two most recent annual filing periods, while new additions are blocked if they fail in either of the last two. MSCI said it would publish the final list of affected companies on Nov. 11.

The decision also ends a temporary reprieve. As the crypto-treasury trend exploded, MSCI last year froze certain index adjustments for companies whose digital-asset holdings made up 50% or more of their total assets; that interim measure now gets scrapped, with all such firms assessed under the new rules.

Removal from major MSCI indexes would force the funds that track them to sell the affected shares, potentially pressuring stock prices and shrinking the premium these companies have long traded at over the value of their crypto. Saylor had urged MSCI to drop what he called a “discriminatory” rule that would delete Strategy from its benchmarks.

The threat has already spurred defensive maneuvers. Metaplanet recently sold 10,000 Bitcoin and bought back 11,000 to demonstrate active treasury management, while Strategy has kept accumulating, adding to its stack even as the index question loomed.

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Google has made a fresh announcement regarding quantum computing, reigniting fears about the future security of crypto assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum. 

CEO Sundar Pichai revealed that Google's Quantum AI team has made a breakthrough in what's called "magic state cultivation" on their Willow quantum computer.

The findings, which were published in the scientific journal Science, revealed that they reduced errors by a factor of 40 compared to preparing quantum states without the new method.

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Also, they've achieved a record logical fidelity of 99.99% for specialized quantum states called T-states.

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Google has stated that this breakthrough is a major step towards creating high-power, error-corrected quantum computers that can do things that are impossible with today's computers.

This breakthrough solves one of the major problems in quantum computing, which is the huge amount of resources needed to create reliable quantum states. 

What does this mean for crypto?This news reignites concerns about how quantum computing may be a threat to the security of blockchain.

Many major cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum use elliptic curve cryptography to secure transactions and verify digital signatures. 

If a powerful enough quantum computer were created, theoretically it could break these cryptographic measures. 

This new breakthrough from Google doesn't mean current cryptocurrencies are in trouble right now.

The tech giant has not yet demonstrated this method at a scale that would be required for real practical use in large-scale quantum computing.

That said, the developmnent makes it much easier to complete one of the toughest steps in creating a quantum computer capable of breaking cryptocurrency.

They've made one of the toughest steps much easier to accomplish when creating a quantum computer that could break crypto.

The recent sharp sell-off in the cryptocurrency market has heightened investor concerns, while some analysts believe the current correction could be a healthy pullback at the start of a new bull cycle. In an article published by The DeFi Report (TDR), analyst Mike noted striking similarities between Bitcoin’s (BTC) price movements in 2023 and current market conditions, arguing that significant opportunities could arise, particularly in altcoins with strong fundamentals.

The analyst stated that he maintains his view that the cryptocurrency market is in the early stages of a new bull cycle, giving this scenario a 90 percent probability. However, Mike emphasized that investors should not expect an uninterrupted rise in the short term, predicting that Bitcoin could fluctuate between $80,000 and $95,000 in the coming months.

Mike recalled that during the early bull market of 2023, Bitcoin moved sideways for about seven months, experiencing two 17% corrections during that period. He noted that high inflation, banking crises, and the Fed’s tight monetary policies created uncertainty in the market during that time, and stated that similar macroeconomic pressures are still in effect today.

Mike stated that the most important technical indicator for Bitcoin is the 50-week moving average, noting that the price managed to stay above this level in 2023, laying the groundwork for subsequent price increases. According to the analyst, the 50-week moving average, currently around $77,200, remains a critical support level in the current cycle.

Mike predicted that this average could bottom out around $75,000, while Bitcoin’s movement between $78,000 and $92,000 would be similar to the early bull market of 2023. The analyst warned that a sustained decline below $75,000 could seriously weaken the current bullish scenario.

According to an analyst, altcoins could be the winners of this cycle.
One of the most notable points in Mike’s assessment was his expectation that altcoins could outperform Bitcoin in the current market cycle.

Recalling that Bitcoin’s market dominance steadily strengthened in the previous cycle, the analyst argued that a different picture might emerge this time. He stated that the main reason for this is the presence of more cryptocurrency projects that have reached real user demand, generated revenue, and transferred economic value to token holders, compared to previous years.

Mike, specifically highlighting the importance of token buyback mechanisms, stated that in some projects, reinvesting revenue generated back into the token economy creates a stronger value proposition for investors.

The analyst, noting the recent performance of projects like Zcash (ZEC), Hyperliquid (HYPE), Lighter (LIT), and NEAR Protocol (NEAR), said that demand for quality altcoins could create a different market structure than in previous cycles.

However, Mike, who expects Bitcoin’s market dominance to rise again in the short term from around 60 percent, predicted that this movement could trigger a new wave of gains in altcoins.

Could Robinhood’s Ecosystem Be the New Solana?
The analyst suggested that one of the most notable opportunities in the current market could be the ecosystem developing around Robinhood Chain.

Mike stated that the Robinhood ecosystem has seen a sharp correction following intense speculation during the summer months, with some assets losing approximately 70 percent of their value and investor sentiment deteriorating significantly.

However, according to the analyst, this does not mean that the ecosystem’s long-term potential has disappeared.

Mike noted that Robinhood’s large user base, wallet infrastructure, and ability to combine traditional and decentralized finance applications offer significant advantages, and drew attention to the infrastructure created by platforms such as Uniswap, Morpho, and Lighter.

The analyst did not claim that the Robinhood ecosystem would directly become the Solana of this cycle, but reminded that in past cycles, some ecosystems that attracted speculative interest early on turned into big winners in subsequent rallies.

According to Mike, the current price correction presents a noteworthy period for assessing whether the Robinhood ecosystem will play a significant role in future market movements.

Which Altcoins Stand Out After the Sharp Decline?
Mike also reviewed the recent performance of the assets in his portfolio, noting in particular the pullback in the price of Lighter (LIT).

The analyst noted that the LIT price had fallen from around $5.50 to $3.30, adding that the Relative Strength Index (RSI) approaching the oversold region could be a potential positive sign.

Mike also stated that he maintains his bullish outlook for Ethereum (ENA), while noting that Derive (DRV) remains stronger compared to some other altcoins, influenced by a recently published investment report.

The analyst noted that momentum indicators in the Memecoin portfolio were also approaching oversold levels, suggesting that new opportunities could emerge in this area, but cautioned that these assets carry high volatility.

Mike explained that although his positions outside of Bitcoin have fallen by approximately 33 percent from their September peaks, they continue to generate a total return of over 106 percent.

On the other hand, the analyst added that one of the biggest risks to the bullish scenario is inflation. Noting that US annual inflation in September came in at 3.7%, exceeding expectations, Mike said that pressure on interest rates and bond yields could increase volatility in the cryptocurrency market.

Nevertheless, the analyst, maintaining his long-term optimism, argued that the current sell-off could be a rebalancing process in the early bull market rather than the beginning of a new bear market.

*This is not investment advice.

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XRP retail sentiment has turned extremely bullish on Binance, OKX, and Bybit, despite a macroeconomic-driven selloff that rattled the cryptocurrency market this week. 

Data from Coinglass shows that retail traders across all three exchanges favor long positions over short positions, indicating that more individual traders expect XRP prices to rise than fall.

XRP Retail Sentiment Stays Extremely Bullish However, this bullish positioning comes as persistent inflation concerns continue to pressure the market.

The long/short ratios show the strength of this sentiment. Binance records a retail long/short ratio of 2.70, slightly below its previous reading. 

OKX follows with a ratio of 3.26, which has also declined from a higher level. Bybit leads the three exchanges with a ratio of 3.92, although its reading has also edged lower. 

XRP retail sentiment flips extremely bullish on major cryptocurrency exchanges Coinglass classifies all three readings as “extremely bullish,” and this shows that retail traders share a strong upward bias across the competing platforms despite the recent price decline.

US CPI Triggers a Multi-Day Decline The latest selloff followed hotter-than-expected US inflation data. On Oct. 14, the BLS reported that CPI increased by 0.6% month-over-month in September. 

The annual inflation rate climbed to 3.7% from 3.4% in August, exceeding economists’ forecast of 3.6%. Core CPI, which excludes food and energy prices, also surpassed expectations, rising 0.3% month-over-month against a forecast of 0.2%.

The report triggered an immediate reaction across cryptocurrency markets. According to The Crypto Basic, XRP fell 1.63% in less than 15 minutes, dropping from $1.38 to an intraday low of $1.3574. 

Meanwhile, the broader crypto market lost roughly $40 billion in market capitalization within 45 minutes. Selling pressure intensified on October 15 after Producer Price Index (PPI) data reinforced inflation concerns. 

PPI increased 1.3% month-over-month and 6.3% year-over-year, significantly exceeding analyst forecasts and raising fears that the Federal Reserve might pursue additional rate hikes. 

XRP subsequently declined toward $1.30, while total cryptocurrency liquidations reached $1.7 billion over the four-day period. By Oct. 16, buyers had defended the $1.32 support zone, helping XRP recover to approximately $1.34.

Overall Volume and Institutional Data Tell Competing Stories Meanwhile, Coinglass’s 24-hour taker buy/sell volume data shows a narrow advantage for buyers. Long volume reached $1.23 billion, accounting for 51.09% of total taker activity, while short volume totaled $1.18 billion, representing 48.91%. 

Although the difference remains relatively small, buyers maintain the lead. This slight advantage aligns with the bullish retail positioning recorded on Binance, OKX, and Bybit, but it does not necessarily confirm that XRP has established a lasting recovery.

Data on whales and sophisticated traders presents an inconsistent trend. On Binance, whale accounts hold a long/short ratio of 3.30, which continues to rise and lands within Coinglass’s extremely bullish category. 

Whale positions register a ratio of 1.99, also trending upward and classified as bullish. However, Binance’s smart money sentiment, which generally shows more sophisticated or institutional trading activity, remains extremely bearish.

OKX shows greater caution among large traders. Whale accounts record a ratio of 0.81, which is rising but remains bearish, while whale positions stand at 0.79, also in bearish territory. Smart money sentiment on the exchange is likewise bearish. 

Bybit registers an extremely bullish ratio of 3.92 for whale accounts. However, whale positions stand at 0.97, indicating neutral sentiment, while its smart money indicator remains extremely bearish, matching Binance’s reading.

XRP Support Levels Analyst Ali Charts has identified $1.25 as XRP’s next critical support level if buyers fail to defend the current trading range. A break below this level could trigger another sharp decline. 

The $1.25 threshold sits roughly 16% below XRP’s pre-shock price range, which makes it an important level to monitor as inflation concerns weigh on market sentiment. 

Meanwhile, XRP-linked exchange-traded funds have attracted only $13 million in October inflows so far, representing a 79% decline in the monthly inflow pace compared with September. This slowdown could leave XRP with less institutional buying support if selling pressure returns.

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