Track market-moving stories before they get noisy

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min read ▪ by
Luc Jose A.

Summarize this article with:

Leverage traders continue to bet on a bitcoin rebound despite weak spot purchases. This divergence could amplify a new drop below 80000 dollars, as many long positions would then be exposed to forced liquidations.

In brief

Traders continue to bet on a bitcoin rise despite weak spot purchases.
Leverage positions remain high, with $36.4 billion committed on futures contracts.
The options market shows growing demand for protection against another drop.
The $80,000 threshold becomes decisive, as its breach could trigger forced position liquidations.
The Fed meeting on October 27-28 could influence the bitcoin’s next direction.

Traders remain optimistic despite spot sell-offs
The perpetual futures market shows that bullish bets remain significant. According to Glassnode’s weekly report published on October 19, payments made by long positions increased by 49.4%, from $1.1 million to $1.6 million.

These fees, called funding rates, help keep perpetual contract prices close to the real bitcoin price. When buyers pay sellers, it generally signals stronger demand for positions betting on an increase.

However, several data show that this optimism rests on a fragile structure :

Buyer payments reached $1.6 million ;
Open interest on futures remains high at $36.4 billion ;
Spot sell-offs still exceed purchases ;
Open interest on options has grown to $38.6 billion ;
The cost of protection against a drop has sharply increased ;
The $80,000 threshold remains the main support to defend.

Open interest on futures only fell by 0.3%, compared to $36.5 billion a week earlier. Leverage positions remain numerous despite bitcoin’s recent decline.

This situation does not automatically cause a new drop. However, it increases market sensitivity. If price falls sharply enough, platforms can close long positions whose margin becomes insufficient. These automatic sales may then accelerate the initial movement.

Options reveal increased demand for protection
The options market shows more marked caution. The 25 delta imbalance indicator, which compares the price of bearish protections to that of equivalent bullish bets, rose from 5.2% to 8.6% in one week.

This increase shows investors agree to pay more to protect themselves against a drop. Put options thus become more sought after, even though bitcoin’s daily movements remain relatively moderate.

The gap between anticipated volatility and actually observed volatility also went from -3.8% to +2.1%. The options market now expects stronger future fluctuations than those recently recorded.

This caution is explained by the persistent weakness of spot demand. The Glassnode indicator that measures the gap between aggressive purchases and sales worsened by 24.7%. Its balance dropped from -$67 million to -$83.6 million.

Daily volume has changed little, with a rise from $5.4 billion to $5.5 billion. Activity thus remains stable, but sellers increasingly dominate trading. This development does not confirm a sustainable accumulation capable of supporting leveraged long positions.

Glassnode describes a more defensive market, but not yet subject to extreme fear. The cost of protections rises, without reaching levels usually associated with panic periods.

The 80,000 dollar threshold becomes the main test
Bitcoin trades near $82,596. The $80,000 threshold has already attracted buyers since the October decline, but a new break could quickly change the balance.

Recent holders reinforce this vulnerability. The share of supply controlled by short-term investors rose from 14.5% to 14.7%, above its usual historical range. These actors often react faster to price changes.

The proportion of bitcoins held with unrealized gains also dropped from 70.1% to 68.2%. At the same time, the ratio between realized profits and losses fell from 0.8 to 0.4. Losses thus become more significant compared to gains realized.

A fall below $80,000 could push traders to voluntarily reduce their positions, then trigger forced liquidations if the movement accelerates. Conversely, a rebound supported by genuine spot purchases would reduce this risk.

The Federal Reserve meeting on October 27 and 28 constitutes the next catalyst. A stricter monetary policy could weigh on risky assets. The danger thus does not come only from a bitcoin drop but from the leverage accumulated by traders still waiting for its recovery.

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Luc Jose A.

Diplômé de Sciences Po Toulouse et titulaire d'une certification consultant blockchain délivrée par Alyra, j'ai rejoint l'aventure Cointribune en 2019.
Convaincu du potentiel de la blockchain pour transformer de nombreux secteurs de l'économie, j'ai pris l'engagement de sensibiliser et d'informer le grand public sur cet écosystème en constante évolution. Mon objectif est de permettre à chacun de mieux comprendre la blockchain et de saisir les opportunités qu'elle offre. Je m'efforce chaque jour de fournir une analyse objective de l'actualité, de décrypter les tendances du marché, de relayer les dernières innovations technologiques et de mettre en perspective les enjeux économiques et sociétaux de cette révolution en marche.

DISCLAIMER

The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this article belong solely to the author, and should not be taken as investment advice. Do your own research before taking any investment decisions.

Ethereum maintained levels near $2,400 over the past 24 hours, continuing a six-day recovery streak as buying activity absorbed pressure from recent sell-offs. This price zone has provided stability for ETH amid broader macroeconomic headwinds and ongoing withdrawals from investment products, serving as a key support area during the latest consolidation phase.

Onchain support and realized priceRecent trading activity has positioned Ethereum just above a critical onchain reference point. CryptoQuant data shows Ethereum’s realized price is approximately $2,311, reflecting the average onchain acquisition cost of ETH holders based on the price at which coins last changed hands.

When Ethereum trades below this level, it often signals that, on aggregate, holders are dealing with unrealized losses, although this does not necessarily mean that all investors are underwater. Historically, buying above the realized price has helped sustain support during market weakness.

Continuing to defend this onchain support may play a vital role in maintaining Ethereum’s current stabilization. However, a breach and daily close below $2,311 could undermine investor confidence and potentially trigger further sell-offs.

Mini dictionary: Realized price, the average price at which all circulating coins were last moved onchain, indicating an aggregate cost basis for holders and serving as a benchmark during periods of market stress.

Pressure has increased on ETH as US spot Ethereum ETFs saw significant outflows, with $103.2 million withdrawn on Monday and another $26 million on Tuesday, according to data from SoSoValue. This marks the fifteenth consecutive session of net outflows over the last fifteen trading days, suggesting persistent softness in institutional demand for ETH through regulated products.

Even with fifteen days of negative flows from US spot ETFs, Ethereum has stabilized near its recent support, showing that market demand outside of ETF channels has helped offset the selling activity.

Derivatives trading has also mirrored this volatility. Within the past 24 hours, total ETH futures liquidations reached $90.59 million, with $62.17 million of those being short positions. The figures imply that recent upward price moves have caught leveraged bearish traders off-guard, reversing a trend that previously favored long liquidation events during ETH’s decline.

Technical levels: $2,324–$2,362 support and near-term resistanceOn the daily ETH/USD chart, Ethereum has been consolidating, with technical support tightly clustered between $2,324 and $2,362. This area aligns with the 100-day Exponential Moving Average ($2,362) and a major horizontal support line ($2,324).

Ethereum has repeatedly tested this range without closing below it, which has enabled buyers to push prices back above $2,400 during the recent rebound phases.

LevelSignificance$2,311Onchain realized price/cost basis$2,324Major horizontal support$2,362100-day EMA$2,44450-day EMA/resistance$2,50020-day EMA/resistance$2,548Horizontal resistance target$2,781Higher resistanceA definitive daily close below $2,324–$2,362 would put the onchain cost basis at $2,311 in sharper focus and could intensify the downside momentum, potentially exposing secondary support at $2,215. On the upside, the 50-day and 20-day EMAs, currently at $2,444 and $2,500 respectively, continue to act as resistance. Sustained movement above these levels could signal a turn in short-term sentiment and open a path toward the $2,548 resistance.

The Relative Strength Index and Stochastic Oscillator have shifted upward but remain below neutral, indicating that selling pressure is waning, while buyers have yet to establish lasting control over price momentum.

For now, preserving the key technical support between $2,324 and $2,362 is central to keeping Ethereum’s current recovery intact. Further advances would likely require buyers to reclaim the $2,444–$2,500 region, reaffirming a stronger upside trajectory.

Summary

Tether led a $15 million Series A funding round for Mural, bringing the financial infrastructure company’s total funding to $28 million.Founded by former Palantir engineers, Mural helps companies manage payments, accounts, identity verification and regulatory compliance across banking networks and blockchains.The investment advances Tether’s push into agentic finance as companies develop safeguards that allow AI systems to execute transactions on behalf of people and businesses.Tether led a $15 million funding round in Mural, expanding the stablecoin issuer’s investments in technology that enables AI agents to handle payments.

The Series A round, which included participation from North Island Ventures and existing investors, brings New York-based Mural's total funding to $28 million, according to an emailed announcement on Tuesday.

Mural, founded by former Palantir (PLTR) engineers, provides fintechs and other platforms with infrastructure for managing accounts, payments, identity verification and regulatory compliance across traditional banking networks and blockchains. Its customers include payroll platform Deel and browser developer Opera.

The funding comes as financial technology companies explore “agentic finance,” in which AI systems can initiate and execute transactions on behalf of individuals or businesses.

Mural's infrastructure allows companies to set transaction limits, restrict counterparties and require additional approvals for larger payments, addressing questions around authorization and accountability when autonomous software moves money.

“As agents start moving money, that connection to the banks, payment networks and compliance systems the world still runs on becomes essential,” Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said in the statement.

The investment reflects Tether's growing interest in infrastructure beyond stablecoin issuance, particularly as programmable payments emerge as a potential use case for AI-powered financial services.

AI Disclaimer: Parts of this article were generated with the assistance from AI tools and reviewed by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and adherence to our standards. For more information, see CoinDesk's full AI Policy.

An institutional cryptocurrency holder has reportedly lost approximately $2.84 million in a suspected attack by North Korea-linked hacking group SquidSquad.

Summary

An institutional cryptocurrency holder reportedly lost approximately $2.84 million in an October 8 attack on BNB Chain. On October 20, the attacker reportedly deposited 1,111.2 ETH into Tornado Cash before withdrawing the funds to three Ethereum addresses and subsequently transferring them to Tron through USDT0. ZachXBT identified two Tron wallets that received the funds and had exposure to previously attributed North Korean addresses. The identity of the affected institution and the method used to compromise its assets remain undisclosed. Blockchain investigator ZachXBT disclosed the suspected theft on October 21, identifying October 8 as the date of the incident on BNB Smart Chain and detailing a series of transactions that allegedly moved the proceeds through several wallets before they reached Chinese over-the-counter cryptocurrency dealers.

According to the investigator, the latest activity took place on October 20, when the attacker deposited 1,111.2 ETH into Tornado Cash and subsequently withdrew the funds to three separate Ethereum addresses.

The investigation identified financial connections between the wallets used in the transfers and addresses previously attributed to North Korean operators. However, the findings remain an on-chain attribution, and the identity of the affected institution has not been publicly disclosed.

SquidSquad stolen funds move through Tornado Cash Following the suspected October 8 theft, the attacker appears to have retained control of the proceeds until the latest movement, which involved converting or transferring the assets into Ethereum before sending them through the privacy protocol.

ZachXBT’s transaction analysis identified three addresses that received funds withdrawn from Tornado Cash. From those wallets, the assets were transferred from Ethereum to Tron using USDT0, a version of Tether’s dollar-pegged stablecoin designed for transfers across supported blockchain networks.

The transfers eventually brought the funds together in two Tron addresses, identified by the investigator as TEvUsnwXvprdvB7eNGiqh6rDiMqFiC8TBU and TVxzjnx3GPDTciiuaqXPaUbU5f5yi3Voux.

Both wallets reportedly had transaction exposure to addresses previously associated with North Korean cryptocurrency operations. ZachXBT did not identify the specific earlier incidents connected to those addresses in the supplied findings.

Within minutes of the consolidation, the funds passed through intermediary wallets before reaching addresses attributed to Chinese OTC dealers.

The investigator suspected that the rapid transfers were intended to avoid a potential freeze by Tether, which can restrict USDT held in addresses on supported blockchains.

Although the investigation traced the reported movements to OTC destinations, the public findings did not establish whether the operators had completed a conversion into fiat currency or whether any portion of the stolen assets had subsequently been frozen.

North Korean laundering networks have remained under scrutiny The latest case follows an October 5 investigation in which ZachXBT said he had infiltrated a suspected cryptocurrency laundering network connected to North Korea’s Lazarus Group.

As crypto.news previously reported, the investigator said he spent $349,700 posing as a customer to trace transactions associated with the $1.5 billion Bybit theft in 2025.

His findings identified an alleged Chinese operation that had processed more than $1 billion across multiple cryptocurrency exploits, although the claimed size of the network was not independently confirmed by publicly available U.S. enforcement records.

During that investigation, ZachXBT said he identified more than $12 million in Bybit-linked funds moving across different blockchains. Tether subsequently froze 442,000 USDT associated with wallets uncovered during the operation, according to his account.

The investigator has not established a publicly documented connection between the operators identified in that investigation and the OTC dealers involved in the latest SquidSquad transaction trail.

Tornado Cash transfers follow other suspected DPRK-linked attacks Separate cryptocurrency theft investigations have documented similar movements through Tornado Cash, including transactions involving assets stolen from Drift Protocol earlier this year.

On October 20, wallets associated with the Drift Protocol exploit transferred approximately 25,700 ETH, valued at $61.56 million, into the privacy protocol after a period of limited activity.

Drift suffered losses estimated at $285 million in April, with a subsequent forensic investigation by cybersecurity firm Mandiant attributing the attack to UNC6862, a North Korean threat group.

The Drift transfers were reported on the same day as the movements identified in the SquidSquad case, although investigators have not established that the two transactions involved the same operators or were coordinated.

A separate investigation into the 2024 Radiant Capital attack documented the use of Tornado Cash after attackers stole approximately $50 million from the lending protocol.

According to Radiant Capital’s subsequent disclosures, the attackers compromised signing permissions and replaced a lending pool implementation contract. Cybersecurity investigators later connected the incident to North Korean operators.

By October 2025, blockchain security firm CertiK had identified 2,834 ETH deposited into Tornado Cash from wallets associated with the attack, with approximately $10.8 million believed to have passed through the mixer.

Radiant announced in June 2026 that it would wind down operations after failing to recover from the theft and secure sufficient funding to continue development.

SquidSquad suspected to be using impersonation and malware A 2026 DPRK cryptocurrency threat assessment found that SquidSquad was associated with campaigns targeting cryptocurrency founders, executives and wealthy investors.

According to the report, the group commonly impersonates venture capitalists, investors and business contacts before attempting to distribute malicious documents or software through messaging platforms such as Telegram and LinkedIn.

Researchers linked the group to malware families including RustBucket, SwiftBucket and NimDoor, while identifying Tornado Cash among the services used to move stolen funds.

Similar methods have appeared in other North Korean hacking campaigns, with Lazarus Group targeting cryptocurrency executives through fake meeting invitations and malicious macOS software, according to an April investigation by cybersecurity firm CertiK.

Faster blocks are the headline. The Sprout pool freeze, which would strand about $26 million of old coins, is the detail holders are checking

Zcash developers are due to decide today whether the NU7 network upgrade goes to mainnet and which block height activates it. Engineers from the Zcash Foundation, ZODL, Shielded Labs and other core teams are expected to settle the parameters, ahead of a November 5 target.

NU7's main change cuts the network's target block time from 75 seconds to 25 seconds, which would make confirmations roughly three times faster. It went live on the public testnet on October 4 at block 4,465,026, a couple of days ahead of the schedule the Zcash Foundation had published with the first Zebra release candidate. Developers have had about two weeks of testnet data to judge.

Zcash upgrades activate at a block height rather than on a calendar date, and no mainnet height has been set. Until one is assigned, November 5 is a plan, not a commitment, and today's call is where it either firms up or slips.

The part holders are watchingNU7 disables legacy version 4 transactions. That closes the oldest shielded pool, Sprout, which held about 22,309 ZEC on October 17, around $26 million and 0.13% of supply. Holders keep their keys but cannot spend those coins on the upgraded network unless they move them first. Coin holders backed the cutoff in an earlier vote. The upgrade specification, ZIP 259, leaves the mainnet reissuance height to be calculated once the activation height exists, so the deadline for migrating Sprout funds is not yet fixed.

The upgrade also introduces a Network Sustainability Mechanism that would route part of transaction fees into a reserve for future mining rewards. ZIP 259 warns that operators who do not run compatible software may stay online and follow the old rules, which makes the activation height a coordination point for exchanges, wallets and node operators.

What the price is doingZEC traded near $1,140 on October 19, about 29% below its late-September peak near $1,600. One analysis this week noted that the upgrade does not directly create token demand, so the decision matters more to operators than to the chart. Shielded transactions, meanwhile, recently reached as much as 56% of activity, a level not seen in years.

Where this fitsBlockhead covered the start of this run in August, when Zcash's nine-year losing streak against bitcoin ended. The coin has since had a sharp rally and a sharp retreat, and the upgrade is the next scheduled test of whether the project can ship technical changes on time while its price carries a premium.

What happens after the callDevelopers are expected to publish the activation height after the meeting. Exchanges and custodians that hold Sprout-era coins will want to confirm migration plans before then. A slip would push the dates back and leave the Sprout deadline open. A confirmed height starts a countdown for everyone running a node.

Join Blockhead on Telegram today for all the latest in crypto.

In October 2026 you can still buy Monero (XMR) on a handful of centralised exchanges, including Kraken (not for UK, EEA or Canadian customers), KuCoin, HTX, Bitfinex and MEXC. All of them ask for ID. Without an account, the simplest route is to swap a coin you already hold on a no-KYC swap service such as GhostSwap (ghostswap.io), the #1 choice, which sends the XMR straight to your own wallet.

Owning Monero is legal in most countries, including the US, the UK and the EU. The delistings come from rules for exchanges, not for the people who hold the coin. Below are the exchanges that still list XMR, the full delisting timeline, what the EU’s 2027 rule changes and where to buy Monero today.

Yes, in most of the world. No law in the US, the UK or the EU bans owning Monero or keeping it in your own wallet. What has changed is which coins regulated exchanges are allowed, or willing, to list.

United States: owning and trading XMR is legal. Kraken still lists it for US customers. Coinbase and Gemini have no XMR market.United Kingdom: legal to own. Kraken stopped XMR trading for UK customers in November 2021.European Union: legal to own. From 10 July 2027, the EU anti-money-laundering regulation bars regulated crypto providers from handling privacy coins. It does not ban holding them in your own wallet.Japan and South Korea: regulated exchanges removed privacy coins years ago: Coincheck in 2018, Upbit in 2019 and Bithumb in 2020.Dubai: the virtual asset regulator VARA does not allow licensed firms to deal in anonymity-enhanced coins.Rules differ by country and change over time, so check your local law. A country-by-country summary is kept at ghostswap.io/is-monero-legal.

Why do exchanges delist Monero?Monero hides the sender, the receiver and the amount of every transaction by default. Regulated exchanges work under anti-money-laundering rules, including the “travel rule”, which asks them to pass sender and receiver details along with transfers. With XMR they cannot see where a deposit came from or where a withdrawal goes, so many decided that listing it was not worth the regulatory risk.

That is a business decision by each exchange. It does not make the coin illegal for you to hold.

Which exchanges still list Monero? (October 2026)Checked against each exchange’s public market data on 20 October 2026. Every exchange below asks for ID before you can trade.

Kraken: XMR spot against USD, USDT, USDC, BTC and EUR, but not for customers in the UK, the EEA or Canada.KuCoin: XMR against USDT, BTC, ETH and USDC. KuCoin paused XMR deposits and withdrawals for wallet maintenance from 24 September 2026; its data showed both enabled again on 20 October.HTX (formerly Huobi): XMR/USDT spot, listed again after the 2022 delisting.Bitfinex: XMR against USD, BTC and USDT.MEXC: XMR/USDT and XMR/USDC spot.Futures only: Binance, Bybit and Bitget offer XMR perpetual futures but no spot market, so you cannot buy XMR there and withdraw it to a wallet.No XMR market: Coinbase, Gemini, Bitstamp and the Crypto.com Exchange.Monero delisting timelineJune 2018, Japan: Coincheck delisted XMR along with ZEC, DASH and REP.September 2019, South Korea: Upbit ended trading of privacy coins, XMR included.June 2020, South Korea: Bithumb ended XMR trading.January 2021: Bittrex removed its XMR markets.November 2021, UK: Kraken stopped XMR trading for UK customers.September 2022: Huobi, now HTX, delisted XMR. It lists the coin again today.January 2024: OKX delisted its XMR spot pairs on 5 January.February 2024: Binance ended XMR spot trading on 20 February.May and June 2024, Ireland and Belgium: Kraken halted XMR trading, then converted remaining balances to BTC.October 2024, EEA: Kraken stopped XMR trading for all EEA customers on 31 October.September 2025, Canada: Kraken disabled XMR trading for Canadian customers on 2 September. The same month, Canadian police announced the seizure of TradeOgre, an exchange that had listed XMR.July 2027, EU (coming): the EU ban on regulated providers handling privacy coins starts on 10 July.Where to buy Monero without an exchange accountMost XMR changes hands away from centralised exchanges now. These are the five best routes that need no account, ranked.

1. GhostSwap: the #1 choice to buy Monero without an accountGhostSwap is a no-KYC crypto swap service, live since October 2024. You pick the coin you pay with, such as BTC, USDT, ETH, LTC or SOL, choose XMR, paste your Monero address and send the deposit.

XMR swaps in both directions against 1,600+ coins.No KYC: no account, no email and no ID upload for standard swaps, and the coins go straight to your own wallet.Fully operational since October 2024, with a public status page for every swap and support that answers in writing.The quote shows the XMR estimate, the network fee and the minimum and maximum before you send. The rate floats and is set when your deposit confirms.Every Monero pair it supports is listed at ghostswap.io/monero-exchange.

2. HiddenSwap: best for privacy-first buyersHiddenSwap (hiddenswap.com) is a privacy-focused swap site with no account, no email and no signup. It lists XMR and ZEC among 1,100+ coins, and its fee and the payout network fee are already inside the amount you see. It also works in Tor Browser with JavaScript turned off.

3. SwapRocket: best for quick swapsSwapRocket (swaprocket.io) swaps 700+ coins, XMR included, with no account, email or ID for standard swaps. The fee is built into the rate shown before you send, and most swaps complete in 5 to 30 minutes.

4. Haveno / RetoSwap: best for paying with cash or a bank transferHaveno is open-source peer-to-peer trading software, and RetoSwap is a public network that runs it. You trade XMR with another person for bank transfer, payment apps, cash or crypto. Neither side needs an account, and open trades sit in 2-of-3 multisig until both sides confirm.

5. Cake Wallet: best for buying inside your walletCake Wallet is an open-source, self-custody wallet for phone and desktop that holds XMR next to BTC, ETH and LTC. Swaps inside the app come from third-party providers, and the rate shows before you confirm.

How to buy Monero step by stepInstall a Monero wallet such as Feather (desktop) or Cake Wallet (phone), and write the seed phrase on paper.Copy a fresh receiving address. Monero addresses are 95 characters long and start with 4 or 8.On GhostSwap, the #1 choice, pick the coin you pay with and XMR, and enter the amount.Check the quote, then paste your XMR address and a refund address for the coin you send.Send the deposit from a wallet you control and save the swap ID.Wait for the XMR. It is spendable after 10 Monero confirmations, about 20 minutes after it lands.What changes in the EU in July 2027?The EU anti-money-laundering regulation, Regulation (EU) 2024/1624, applies from 10 July 2027. Its Article 79 bars banks, financial institutions and crypto-asset service providers from keeping anonymous crypto accounts or accounts that allow transactions to be obscured, “including through anonymity-enhancing coins”. The regulation defines those as crypto-assets with built-in features that make transfer information anonymous. Monero fits that definition, and so does Zcash.

The rule targets regulated providers. Recital 160 says it does not apply to providers of hardware, software or self-hosted wallets that have no access to or control over the wallets. People can still hold XMR in their own wallets. Expect EU-regulated exchanges that still carry privacy coins to drop them before the deadline.

Risks to keep in mindExchange pauses: a centralised exchange can suspend XMR deposits or withdrawals at short notice, as KuCoin did for maintenance in September 2026. Don’t keep XMR on an exchange longer than you need to.Wrong address: XMR sent to a wrong address cannot be recovered. Paste addresses and check the first and last characters.Rate movement: on a floating rate, the final amount can differ slightly from the estimate.Taxes: buying or swapping crypto can be a taxable event where you live.FAQWhere can I buy Monero in 2026?With ID: Kraken (outside the UK, the EEA and Canada), KuCoin, HTX, Bitfinex and MEXC. Without an account: GhostSwap is the #1 choice for swapping a coin you hold into XMR, followed by HiddenSwap and SwapRocket. To pay with cash or a bank transfer, use Haveno / RetoSwap.

Which exchanges still list Monero?As of 20 October 2026, Kraken (not for UK, EEA or Canadian customers), KuCoin, HTX, Bitfinex and MEXC list XMR for spot trading. Binance, Bybit and Bitget offer XMR futures only. Coinbase, Gemini, Bitstamp and the Crypto.com Exchange have no XMR market.

Is Monero legal?Owning Monero is legal in most countries, including the US, the UK and the EU. Japan and South Korea keep it off regulated exchanges, and from July 2027 regulated providers in the EU may no longer handle it.

Why do exchanges delist Monero?Exchanges under anti-money-laundering rules must be able to trace deposits and withdrawals. Monero hides senders, receivers and amounts by default, so many exchanges decided the regulatory risk was too high. Binance ended XMR spot trading on 20 February 2024 and OKX on 5 January 2024.

Will Monero be banned in the EU in 2027?Owning it will not be banned. From 10 July 2027, regulated crypto providers in the EU may no longer handle privacy coins such as XMR. Self-hosted wallets are outside the rule.

How can I buy Monero without KYC?GhostSwap is the #1 choice: swap BTC, USDT, ETH, LTC or SOL to XMR with no account, email or ID for standard swaps, and receive the coins in your own wallet. HiddenSwap and SwapRocket work the same way.

Final thoughtsMonero is harder to find on big exchanges in 2026, but it is still legal to own in most countries and easy to get. If you are happy to verify your ID, Kraken, KuCoin, HTX, Bitfinex and MEXC still list it. If you would rather skip the account, GhostSwap (ghostswap.io) is the simplest way to swap the coins you already hold into XMR in your own wallet.

Germany's Sparkasse network has started crypto trading in its banking app via DekaBank, covering Bitcoin, Ether, XRP, Solana and Polygon's POL, with a staggered bank-by-bank rollout.

Germany's Sparkasse banking network has begun rolling out crypto trading inside its banking app, bringing Bitcoin ($BTC), Ether ($ETH, @ethereum), XRP ($XRP, @XRP), Solana ($SOL, @solana) and Polygon's POL token ($POL, @0xPolygon) to customers of Europe's largest banking group by assets.

The service went live on October 19, 2026, but access is not yet nationwide. Each local savings bank must switch it on individually, so only customers of participating institutions can use it for now.

How the Sparkasse crypto service worksThe product is called "Krypto, powered by Deka" and is run by DekaBank, the securities house of the Sparkassen group. According to Bloomberg, the rollout will be gradual over the coming months, and each Sparkasse decides on its own whether to offer it. DekaBank handles trade execution and custody. Customers open a separate crypto account with DekaBank inside the app's investing section, and a securities account is not required.

The fee is reported at €0.99 per order. DekaBank's announcement does not detail other costs such as spreads, according to fund research outlet e-fundresearch. Reporting also says the service is aimed at adult, self-directed investors and that no investment advice is given.

Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe is described as the largest financial services group in Germany and Europe by assets. Crypto assets held through the service are not covered by statutory deposit insurance, BeInCrypto notes.

Rollout pace and regulatory backdropOnly a handful of banks were live at launch. More than 230 institutions have reportedly expressed interest, and 30 to 40 additional banks are expected to join each month. Joachim Schmalzl of the German Savings Banks Association (DSGV) said it is for each savings bank to decide when to start, according to dpa. The association is aiming for a large share of interested banks to be connected in the first half of 2027.

The move marks a reversal for the group. Bloomberg reports that the Sparkassen long rejected crypto offerings and that its bodies recommended against crypto trading about four years ago because of the risks. The shift was justified by customer demand and a changed regulatory framework.

DekaBank received its licence under the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets rules (MiCA) from Germany's BaFin in 2025, which lets it bundle trading, custody and customer support in one place, according to Bloomberg and e-fundresearch.

Sources:

Bloomberg via Yahoo Finance: Deka startet Bitcoin-Handel nach Sparkassen-Richtungsschwenke-fundresearch: DekaBank startet Kryptohandel fuer Sparkassen-Kunden

Raydium just won a round in Solana’s most closely watched exchange rivalry. On October 7, 2026, the protocol logged $192.2 million in 24-hour trading volume, slipping past PumpFun’s PumpSwap, which recorded $185.0 million.

The gap was $7.2 million. In a market that moves hundreds of millions a day, that is less a knockout than a photo finish.

The numbers behind the flip
The daily volume jump pushed Raydium to eighth place in the global decentralized exchange rankings. That is one spot higher than the ninth position it held before.

The monthly picture is less flattering for Raydium. In September 2026, it captured 12.2% of Solana DEX volume, while PumpFun led the pack with 18.6%.

Context matters on the PumpFun side too. The platform hit a peak of more than $1.7 billion in trading volume in a single day during July 2026. The $185.0 million it posted on October 7 sits far below that high-water mark.

How the rivalry started
For a long stretch, PumpFun and Raydium were partners of convenience. PumpFun was the place memecoins were born, and Raydium was often where they went to trade once they grew up.

That changed in early 2025, when PumpFun launched PumpSwap, its own automated market maker. By building its own, PumpFun cut its dependence on Raydium. Liquidity that used to flow to Raydium started staying in-house.

Raydium’s response was to stop betting everything on memecoins. It introduced LaunchLab, a token launch platform that competes directly with PumpFun’s core product, and it leaned into tokenized asset trading.

That second bet appears to be paying off. Over the past 30 days, Raydium handled 80.5% of trading volume in xStocks-issued assets, or $805.2 million. xStocks are tokenized versions of traditional assets that trade onchain.

Raydium also brings scale that predates the current fight. Its cumulative trading volume passed $1 trillion in May 2026, and its liquidity pools hold around $806 million, the highest of any venue on Solana.

What this means for Solana traders and protocols
PumpFun still owns the memecoin segment. When speculative token launches heat up, as they did during its July peak, its volume can dwarf the competition.

Raydium is building a broader base. Tokenized assets, a launchpad of its own and the deepest liquidity on Solana give it volume sources that do not rise and fall entirely with memecoin activity.

For anyone tracking these protocols as businesses, the September market share figures are the more reliable benchmark. PumpFun’s 18.6% against Raydium’s 12.2% shows the leader still has a meaningful cushion on a monthly basis.

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

Decibel Trade has turned on Aptos’ Encrypted Mempool. Traders on the onchain exchange can now hide the details of their orders while those transactions are still pending.

How the Encrypted Mempool works
Think of a mempool as a public waiting room. Transactions sit there before validators bundle them into a block, and anyone watching can see who is in line and what they plan to do.

That visibility is the problem. Bots scan the waiting room, spot a large buy, and slip their own trades in before and after it. These tactics are called frontrunning and sandwich attacks, and the trader on the receiving end pays for them through worse prices.

The feature went live on Decibel Trade on October 21, 2026. It lets users encrypt their order payloads on their own device, client-side, before the order ever travels to the blockchain.

Not everything is hidden. The sender address and gas fee stay visible. What disappears from view is the substance of the trade: the function being called and the inputs fed into it.

Validators cannot read those specifics until the trade is finalized.

The Aptos plumbing behind it
The capability became possible after Aptos activated governance proposal AIP-144, which was approved around October 12, 2026.

AIP-144 introduced batch threshold encryption to the network. Decryption keys are split across the validator set, so no single party can unlock pending orders early. The design requires no additional trust assumptions beyond the validators Aptos already relies on.

Many existing anti-MEV setups lean on a trusted third party, such as a private relay, to keep orders hidden. Aptos instead builds the protection into its consensus layer.

The system requires no extra hardware or outside trust mechanisms for encryption and decryption, and it keeps onchain verifiability intact.

Encryption usually comes with a speed penalty. Tests indicate this one adds roughly 20–27 ms of latency, about 14% overhead on transaction times. In tests, the system also handled over 1,000 transactions per second with low overhead.

Decibel’s numbers so far
Decibel Trade is an onchain perpetuals and spot exchange incubated by Aptos Labs. It launched on mainnet in February 2026.

Since then it has processed over $8.2 billion in cumulative trading volume as of mid-October 2026. About $1.3 billion of that came in the previous 30 days alone.

The exchange runs on smart contracts written in Move, Aptos’ programming language. That setup lets it operate as a fully onchain central limit order book. Its markets span crypto and commodities.

What this means for traders and Aptos
For active traders, the immediate pitch is protection. Hiding order details until finalization could cut the losses that come from being sandwiched, especially on larger orders that bots love to target.

A 14% overhead is modest on paper. Whether it stays modest during volatile market spikes, when everyone is racing to get orders in at once, is the real test to watch.

The sender address and gas fee remain public, so sophisticated observers may still try to infer intent from patterns. And any new cryptographic system carries implementation risk until it has been battle-tested across many market conditions.

Key metrics to track from here include Decibel’s monthly volume relative to its recent $1.3 billion run rate, how latency behaves under heavier load, and whether other Aptos-based apps adopt the Encrypted Mempool.

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

Memecoin investor Murad has said the crypto bull cycle has yet to begin, with Bitcoin trading near $82,000 after U.S. spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds recorded $526.7 million in daily inflows.

Summary

Murad said crypto’s bull cycle has not begun, without giving a timeline or price target.
Bitcoin ETFs drew $526.7 million on Oct. 19, reducing October’s net outflows to $88 million.
Glassnode’s preceding weekly data showed continued selling despite stronger demand for bullish futures exposure.
Binance’s historical study found four of five rebounds following shallow drawdowns later broke their previous lows.

Murad’s Oct. 20 X post declared that the market’s main advance remained ahead, without setting a price target or giving a timeline.

“The Crypto Bull Cycle hasn’t even begun yet.”

The post had drawn approximately 66,000 views, 1,500 likes, 240 reposts and 329 replies when captured. His statement offered no supporting market data or definition of what would mark the beginning of a bull cycle.

After retreating from nearly $83,000, Bitcoin was down 1.2% over 24 hours at $81,730.70 earlier on Oct. 20, as crypto.news reported on Oct. 20.

The same technical assessment identified $82,587 and $83,457 as recovery levels on the 4-hour chart, with potential support at $81,144 and $80,000.

Crypto bull cycle claim meets a rebound in ETF buying
Farside Investors’ daily table showed $526.7 million in net inflows into U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs on Oct. 19, following $228.4 million in net withdrawals across the preceding five trading sessions.

BlackRock’s IBIT accounted for $665.2 million in subscriptions. Fidelity’s FBTC lost $83.6 million, while Grayscale’s GBTC recorded $54.9 million in withdrawals. The remaining funds listed in the table recorded no net flows that day.

Calculations from Farside’s published daily totals put October’s cumulative net withdrawals at $614.7 million through Oct. 16. Monday’s inflow reduced that shortfall to $88 million through Oct. 19.

The single session therefore more than offset the previous week’s withdrawals, although the month remained negative. IBIT’s subscriptions exceeded the combined net inflow because redemptions at FBTC and GBTC absorbed part of the money entering the fund group.

Farside’s Oct. 20 row still contained missing fund entries when checked. Its displayed zero did not represent a completed trading session with no inflows or outflows.

Bitcoin positioning still showed selling pressure
Glassnode’s Oct. 19 Market Pulse reported that selling had eased during the week to Oct. 18, while spot and ETF demand remained weak. Its measurement period preceded the Oct. 19 ETF inflow.

Across the derivatives indicators, futures open interest slipped from $36.5 billion to $36.4 billion. Long-side funding payments rose from $1.1 million to $1.6 million, which the analytics firm described as renewed willingness to pay for bullish exposure.

Perpetual futures cumulative volume delta improved from negative $891.1 million to negative $562.7 million, according to Glassnode. Aggressive sellers still outweighed buyers despite the smaller negative reading.

Spot cumulative volume delta moved in the opposite direction, falling from negative $67 million to negative $83.6 million. Glassnode characterized the change as continued aggressive selling on centralized exchanges.

On-chain fees and transfer volume each fell roughly 10%, while active addresses remained stable. Options positioning showed continued demand for downside protection, with 25-delta skew rising and implied volatility moving above realized volatility.

Earlier Bitcoin rebounds have produced mixed outcomes
Historical research offers a separate counterpoint to claims that a recovery confirms a new cycle.

Binance Research examined seven episodes between 2011 and 2023 when Bitcoin closed at least 40% above its cycle low while remaining at least 25% below its previous record, according to Oct. 5 coverage of its historical Bitcoin rebound study.

Five signals followed drawdowns of 30% to 38%. Four subsequently broke their previous cycle lows within 43 days, while the July 2021 case held.

The two successful signals followed deeper declines of 75.5% in April 2019 and 67.1% in January 2023. Both eventually reached new highs without first breaking their cycle lows.

Binance cautioned that seven cases were too few to form a reliable forecasting model. Its researchers called the findings a “base rate rather than a forecast.”

Analysts have offered competing cycle readings
Fidelity had warned in September that Bitcoin’s August rally could represent either a lasting recovery or a temporary advance during a continuing bear market, according to coverage of its fourth-quarter crypto market outlook.

The firm said July might already have produced the low, while leaving open the possibility of another decline in November or later.

A bullish interpretation appeared in September coverage of CryptoQuant founder Ki Young Ju’s Bitcoin bull cycle forecast. He expected a full-cycle gain of three to five times, arguing that institutional ownership and a larger market could reduce the extremes seen in earlier cycles.

The MIT-born startup says 16 node operators now run its mump2p software on Ethereum mainnet for more than 1.4 million ETH in stake, and that blocks arrive faster than over Ethereum's default gossip layer.

Ether.fi makes Optimum's mump2p mandatory for its node operators

Posted October 20, 2026 at 11:30 am ET.

Optimum, a networking startup run by MIT professor Muriel Médard, said Tuesday that its block-propagation software, mump2p, is in production on Ethereum mainnet, and that liquid restaking provider ether.fi now requires every one of its 12 node operators to use it.

The company counted 16 node operators on the protocol, running roughly 22,000 validator keys with more than 1.4 million ETH at stake. Optimum put that at over 3% of all ETH staked. Operators it named include Blockdaemon, Everstake, P2P.org, Stakefish and Bitcoin Suisse.

Ether.fi, which announced a blockspace deal with ETHGas in April, had previously left the software optional for its operators, according to Optimum. “We don’t mandate new infrastructure across our entire validator set unless we’re confident it raises the bar for our stakers and for the network,” said Rok Kopp, ether.fi’s co-founder and chief growth officer, in the announcement.

Optimum also gave a dollar figure of about $3.7 billion in what it calls “Total Value Boosted,” a metric of its own that the announcement does not define.

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Speed Figures Come From Optimum Ethereum validators lose attestation and MEV rewards when they see a block late, and Optimum argues that validators far from major hosting hubs pay the most. Its pitch is a faster path for blocks between nodes: mump2p runs as an added channel next to Ethereum’s standard gossip rather than replacing it, the company wrote in August, and encodes data using random linear network coding, a technique the company says was co-invented at MIT.

By Optimum’s own early mainnet measurements, blocks arrived 2.42 times faster than with GossipSub, the peer-to-peer messaging protocol Ethereum’s consensus layer uses by default, and arrival-time variance was about 7.88 times lower. The company said mump2p users got the block first in nine of 10 measurements. The numbers are self-reported, and the announcement did not say how they were gathered. The same two multiples appeared in an Optimum-sponsored Four Pillars report in August, which described a test across 30 gateways while the company was still preparing its mainnet integration.

Médard framed the case in trading terms in the announcement: “In traditional finance, firms spend billions shaving milliseconds off execution because speed is money.”

From Testnet to Production Optimum ran a private testnet with seven operators in June 2025, two months after raising an $11 million seed round led by 1kx. It says connecting is free and permissionless, needs no changes to consensus or execution software, and takes one engineer less than an hour. In August, however, Optimum described the network as permissioned for now, with operators connecting through an API key it issued. The company said it plans to bring the protocol to other high-throughput blockchains after Ethereum.

Related Listen: Bits + Bips: Should Ethereum Really Burn Its Staking Yield to Zero?

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.

Wall Street has found a new way to buy Bitcoin, and it looks a lot like something your grandparents owned. According to a report from Fidelity Digital Assets, perpetual preferred stocks issued by Bitcoin treasury companies have financed the purchase of 135,979 BTC in just over a year.

That figure, measured as of October 5, 2026, represents more than 0.5% of Bitcoin’s total supply.

The report, published October 20, 2026, frames these instruments as a real source of demand for Bitcoin. It also positions them as a bridge to the much larger world of fixed-income investors.

The numbers behind the preferred stock push
Think of a perpetual preferred stock as a bond that never matures. Investors hand over cash, the company pays them a steady dividend, and there is no date when the principal comes back.

For Bitcoin treasury companies, that structure is useful. They raise money from income-focused investors and use it to buy more Bitcoin, without issuing new common shares or taking on traditional debt.

The pace picked up sharply in 2026. Between March and May, issuers raised more than $7 billion through these offerings, according to Fidelity.

That capital went toward more than 95,000 BTC during those three months alone.

April was the peak. Fidelity’s data shows nearly 30,000 BTC were purchased in one week that month.

How it stacks up against spot ETPs
Fidelity was careful not to oversell the comparison with spot Bitcoin exchange-traded products. Those funds launched in January 2024 and gathered 888,185 BTC in their first year.

Fidelity’s argument is about who these products reach, not raw volume. The firm sees perpetual preferred equity as a way to tap the broader fixed-income market, which it estimates at around $150 trillion.

Fidelity also asserts that these vehicles can offer yields that surpass many traditional cash equivalents.

Where this trend came from
The model traces back to Strategy, which launched its first perpetual preferred stock product in July 2025. That issuance opened the door for others, including Strive, which Fidelity names alongside Strategy as a pioneer of the structure.

Fidelity has been building this thesis for a while. In commentary from September 2026, the firm highlighted the potential of preferred equity as a form of Bitcoin-backed digital credit, pointing to its appeal for fixed-income investors.

What this means for Bitcoin demand
Money raised through perpetual preferreds goes directly into Bitcoin purchases, so every successful offering translates into buying pressure on the open market.

Still, the model carries risks worth watching. Perpetual preferred stocks come with ongoing dividend obligations, and those payments do not stop just because Bitcoin’s price falls.

Issuers are effectively promising fixed income backed by a volatile asset. If Bitcoin enters a prolonged downturn, the market will test whether that promise holds up and whether investors keep lining up for new issuances.

For investors, the key metrics to track are the volume of new preferred issuance and how much of it converts into Bitcoin purchases. The yields these products offer relative to cash equivalents will also signal whether fixed-income buyers stay interested.

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

The Liquid Network on Tuesday said that things were up and running again, over one month after hackers stole 4,000 bitcoin, worth about $320 million at the time, from the network’s federation wallet before returning most of it in a “white hat” operation.

Writing in a blog post, the Liquid Network said that it was entering “the final stages of recovery with enhanced security.” 

Hackers in September stole 4,000 bitcoins from the federation wallet that backs the Blockstream sidechain. Blockstream was able to negotiate to get back most of the funds. 

“The final phase of restoration involves reestablishing the network’s full 1:1 bitcoin backing, followed by the controlled reactivation of Federation peg-outs for authorized PAK key holders,” the Liquid blog post read. 

“The Federation, Blockstream, and independent security experts have made substantial progress toward this objective, with the necessary technical infrastructure and safeguards now in place.”

The post added that it had introduced phased swaps again. Blockstream CEO Adam Back wrote on X on Tuesday that swaps were working again. 

Liquid is a layer-2 created by Blockstream that allows users to quickly move assets backed 1:1 with bitcoin. People can swap stablecoins for bitcoin and bitcoin on the Lightning Network on apps that support the Liquid Network. 

Hackers were able to get 4,000 bitcoins by exploiting an inflation bug on the Liquid sidechain to create over 4,000 LBTC — a token supposedly backed by bitcoin — that did not exist before and cash them out for real on-chain BTC. 

The hackers claimed to be white hat hackers who then had an exchange with Blockstream via messages written into Bitcoin blocks. Though critics argue they were not so ‘white’ since they kept 15% of the stolen funds, worth millions.

In one message, the hackers slammed Blockstream as “delusional, greedy, and arrogant,” and threatened to reveal all of Blockstream’s encrypted messages in the exchange unless the company paid the hackers 10% of the bitcoins as an official bounty. 

“You SHALL pay 10% using your own money as bug bounty or you will cause all your holders a 15% loss for your irresponsibility and stinginess,” the message read. 

The hackers are still holding onto around 600 bitcoins — or 15% of the total funds — worth close to $50 million at today’s prices as per the latest public knowledge. 

It is not clear if Blockstream reached a settlement with the hackers in private.

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.

Coinbase received another major Bitcoin deposit on Tuesday, with 500 BTC transferred from wallets linked to convicted Irish drug trafficker Clifton Collins. This latest batch, valued at approximately $41 million, marks the fifth substantial transfer of Collins’s Bitcoin holdings in 2026.

Fifth transfer from legacy Bitcoin stashThe moved coins trace back to a legacy wallet initialized on January 23, 2016, which had remained inactive for over a decade. Blockchain analytics firm Arkham connected the latest transaction to Collins and identified it as the fifth such movement from his holdings this year.

Arkham recorded that the first 500 BTC from Collins’s wallets were sent to Coinbase Custody in March, when Bitcoin traded around $35 million per batch. Subsequent transfers followed: $38 million worth on May 19, another similar-sized move on July 2, and a $39.5 million transfer on August 28. With Tuesday’s transfer, a total of 2,500 BTC has left Collins’s addresses since January.

Irish police seized the assets in March but have not confirmed conducting this week’s transfer. Arkham analysts suggested law enforcement likely orchestrated the move, though no agency officially acknowledged responsibility.

DateAmount (BTC)DestinationUSD Value (at time)March 2026500Coinbase Custody$35 millionMay 19, 2026500New address$38 millionJuly 2, 2026500Coinbase CustodyNot specifiedAug 28, 2026500Same as July batch$39.5 millionOct 20, 2026500Coinbase$41 millionAfter the most recent batch, just under 3,500 BTC valued at nearly $288 million remain in Collins’s addresses.

Background: The fate of Clifton Collins’s BitcoinClifton Collins, an Irish national convicted of drug trafficking, reportedly used proceeds from cannabis operations in 2011 and 2012 to acquire roughly 6,000 BTC, spreading them across 12 separate wallets containing 500 BTC each.

Collins stored the wallets’ seed phrases on a single sheet of A4 paper, hidden inside a fishing rod case. In 2017, following his arrest, the landlord disposed of his belongings—including the fishing rod case. The keys are believed to have ended up in a County Galway landfill, leading to long-standing assumptions that the coins were irretrievable.

Despite the presumed loss, law enforcement gained access to at least one wallet earlier this year. The Irish Criminal Assets Bureau reported working with Europol to take control of a cryptocurrency wallet containing 500 BTC deemed criminal proceeds, though the exact method of gaining access remains undisclosed.

The Irish Garda did not specify how investigators gained entry to the wallet, leaving questions about the possibility of defective key generation software and whether the same vulnerability could be used to recover additional wallets.

Coinbase Custody, a secure crypto storage service often used by government agencies to hold seized assets, has received several of the batches linked to Collins’s holdings.

Mini dictionary: Arkham is a blockchain intelligence platform that provides tools and data for tracing crypto transactions and identifying wallet owners, often assisting law enforcement and market analysts with on-chain investigations.

Old Bitcoin wallets reawaken in OctoberCollins’s case is part of a larger pattern of dormant Bitcoin wallets becoming active in October. So far this month, 24 long-inactive wallets have transferred a combined 1,756.815 BTC, amounting to more than $145 million.

One of these wallets, originating in September 2013, moved 411.45 BTC worth around $33.4 million. This wallet is named in the ongoing “Noah Doe” suit in New York, which aims to have idle Bitcoin wallets—potentially containing nearly 3.8 million BTC—declared abandoned property. However, plaintiffs do not possess the necessary private keys to access these funds.

Efforts are underway in US courts to address the status of inactive crypto wallets, but without private keys, the assets remain beyond reach despite their immense value.

XRP, the native cryptocurrency of the XRP Ledger, is trading around $1.34 as of October 20, 2026. Also commonly referred to as Ripple coin, XRP is approximately 64% below its all-time high of $3.65 and 22% below its late-September weekly peak of $1.66.

Three developments are driving much of the decline: US spot XRP ETFs recorded their first weekly outflow in 14 weeks, up to 1 billion XRP held in Ripple’s escrow accounts will become eligible for release on November 1, and Bitcoin has fallen toward $83,000. Declines in Bitcoin often lead to even sharper losses across the altcoin market.

This article examines why XRP is falling, the price levels analysts are monitoring, and the developments that could change its outlook. It also looks at the MemeToro $MT presale for readers interested in exploring early-stage cryptocurrency projects during periods of weakness in established digital assets.

MemeToro is an open-source, AI-powered meme coin launchpad being developed on BNB Chain. Stage 9 of its presale is priced at $0.00649 per token. The project’s token contract has undergone three security audits, purchased tokens are delivered directly to buyers’ wallets, and a public testnet is already available.

This article contains sponsored content about MemeToro. Nothing presented here constitutes financial advice.

Key takeawaysXRP price today: According to FinanceFeeds, XRP is trading around $1.34 on October 20, 2026. KuCoin News reports that its market capitalization declined by approximately $5.83 billion over seven days from $88.22 billion on October 12.ETF flows reverse: US spot XRP ETFs recorded approximately $1.84 million in net outflows last week, ending 13 consecutive weeks of inflows, according to SoSoValue data reported by Coin-Turk and FXStreet.MemeToro presale: Stage 9 of the $MT presale is underway at $0.00649 on BNB Chain. Tokens are delivered directly to buyers’ wallets, and the token contract has been audited by Coinsult, SolidProof, and BlockSAFU.Upcoming supply event: Up to 1 billion XRP will become eligible for release from Ripple’s escrow accounts on November 1 at 00:00 UTC. Historically, Ripple has re-locked approximately 70% of released tokens.Bitcoin’s influence: According to 24/7 Wall St., Bitcoin is trading near $81,000 with a market dominance of 59.5%. Altcoins typically face greater pressure when Bitcoin declines.Key XRP price levels: FXStreet and FinanceFeeds identify $1.28 and $1.24 as important downside levels, while $1.34–$1.38 is the immediate resistance area.Next major event: The Federal Reserve is scheduled to meet on October 27–28.MemeToro ($MT) in 60 secondsMemeToro is an open-source, AI-powered meme coin launchpad under development on BNB Chain. Its native $MT token is currently available in Stage 9 of the presale.

Price: 1 $MT = $0.00649. Once the Stage 9 fundraising target is reached, the next stage will begin at a higher token price.

What supporters highlight: Three token security audits completed by Coinsult, SolidProof, and BlockSAFU; publicly available code under an MIT license; just 2% of the total token supply allocated to the team; and 71% reserved for the public sale. Purchased tokens are also delivered directly to buyers’ wallets.

What to consider: Interested readers can visit MemeToro’s official website to review its tokenomics and open-source code. The project’s risks should also be carefully considered before making any investment decision.

Why consider MemeToro ($MT) while XRP is falling?When major cryptocurrencies experience sharp declines, some investors consider allocating a small portion of their portfolios to higher-risk, early-stage projects. MemeToro falls into this category, although it differs substantially from XRP.

According to CoinGecko, XRP has a market capitalization of approximately $83 billion and is supported by spot ETFs trading in the United States. MemeToro, by contrast, is an early-stage project developing an open-source, AI-powered meme coin launchpad on BNB Chain. Its $MT token remains in a staged presale.

MemeToro’s operating model follows a straightforward principle: AI generates proposals, while smart contracts execute transactions according to predefined, transparent rules.

The platform’s AI agent analyzes news and trends on X to develop meme coin concepts. It explains the reasoning behind each proposal and records the results in a machine-readable file called a launch manifest, which contains the terms governing a token launch.

A smart contract called FairLaunchEscrow then applies those published conditions. The AI is responsible for generating and explaining ideas, but it does not control users’ funds.

The project’s code is publicly available on GitHub under an MIT license. The MemeToro team describes its current repository as an early-stage minimum viable product (MVP), with development of the launchpad still underway.

Supporters of the MemeToro ($MT) presale highlight several features:

Transparent operations: Token launch conditions are published before fundraising begins. Smart contracts are designed to enforce those rules, reducing reliance on promises made by the development team.Open-source code: The AI agent, launch manifest format, escrow contract, and testing framework are publicly available under an MIT license.Independent audits: Three separate security firms have audited the $MT token contract.Public-focused token allocation: Of the total supply, 71% is allocated to the public sale and 2% to the team. Marketing tokens follow a 24-month vesting schedule.Accessible purchasing options: Buyers can pay with cryptocurrency or a credit card. Tokens are sent directly to their wallets, and the website supports more than 16 languages.A working testnet: Users can explore the platform’s functionality without committing real funds.Staged pricing: Each new presale stage begins at a higher price. The $0.00649 price is therefore available only while Stage 9 remains open.How to buy $MT in Stage 9: Visit the presale section of the official MemeToro website and carefully verify the website address. You can connect a wallet on BNB Smart Chain or select the credit card payment option.

Before completing a purchase, verify the contract address and review the Stage 9 price and sale conditions. Purchased $MT tokens are transferred directly to your wallet. You should also check the regulations applicable in your jurisdiction before participating.

Why is XRP falling? Five reasons behind the decline1. Demand for XRP ETFs has weakenedUS spot XRP ETFs have attracted approximately $1.8 billion since launching nearly a year ago. However, the funds recorded around $1.84 million in net outflows last week.

According to SoSoValue data reported by Coin-Turk on October 17, this ended a streak of 13 consecutive weeks of inflows.

Although the outflow was relatively small, the reversal is significant because ETF purchases had been one of the more consistent sources of demand for XRP.

According to 24/7 Wall St., total assets held by dedicated XRP investment funds declined from $1.77 billion to approximately $1.47 billion.

Bitcoin ETFs, meanwhile, showed a different trend. FinanceFeeds, citing Farside Investors data, reported that US-listed Bitcoin funds attracted $526.7 million on Monday.

2. More XRP could enter circulationRipple’s next escrow release is scheduled for Sunday, November 1, at 00:00 UTC. Two escrow accounts containing a combined 1 billion XRP will become eligible for release.

As of October 18, Ripple held 31.40 billion XRP in escrow.

Over the previous 12 release cycles, the company unlocked a total of 12 billion XRP but subsequently re-locked 8.4 billion tokens, equivalent to approximately 70%.

According to FinanceFeeds, Ripple followed a similar pattern in October. After releasing 1 billion XRP, it re-locked 700 million, leaving a net 300 million XRP outside escrow.

This means the entire 1 billion XRP scheduled for potential release on November 1 will not necessarily enter circulation. Nevertheless, the upcoming event remains an important consideration for traders.

3. XRP supply has grown faster than its market valueAccording to an October 16 CoinDesk report citing Nansen data, XRP’s circulating supply has increased by 63% since 2017.

During that period, the number of XRP tokens in circulation rose from 38.7 billion to 63.1 billion, while the cryptocurrency’s total market capitalization declined by approximately 3%.

Nansen analyst Nicolai Sondergaard explained that an increase in circulating supply means each token represents a smaller share of roughly the same total market value.

XRP’s weaker performance compared with other major cryptocurrencies has also attracted attention.

According to Tesseract Group’s Oliver Carding, quoted by CoinDesk, XRP has lost approximately 59% of its value since August 2025. Bitcoin declined 32% over the same period, while Ether fell 44%.

4. Bitcoin weakness and macroeconomic conditions are adding pressureBitcoin is trading near $83,000 after briefly falling below $80,000 earlier this week.

US inflation rising to 3.7% in September has also weighed on market sentiment. Investors are now looking ahead to the Federal Reserve’s October 27–28 meeting.

According to 24/7 Wall St., Bitcoin accounts for 59.5% of the total cryptocurrency market, while XRP represents approximately 3%. Altcoins generally face greater pressure during periods of Bitcoin weakness.

The same publication reported that the overall cryptocurrency market declined by 3.5% in 24 hours on October 17.

5. XRP demand indicators have deterioratedAccording to CoinGlass data cited by FXStreet, open interest in XRP perpetual futures declined from 2.34 billion XRP on October 1 to an average of 2.17 billion XRP on Monday.

FXStreet also highlighted weakening interest from both retail and institutional investors.

Technical indicators reflect a similar trend. The Relative Strength Index (RSI) is hovering around 37, while the Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) indicator remains in negative territory.

Developments involving Ripple have also failed to provide meaningful support for XRP’s price.

On October 15, Ripple Prime introduced perpetual swap trading for more than 100 underlying assets using RLUSD as collateral. However, CryptoTicker noted that XRP is neither accepted as collateral nor used as a settlement asset within the system.

According to XRP Insights, RLUSD’s circulating supply has reached approximately $2.43 billion. Nevertheless, RLUSD’s growth does not directly require users to purchase XRP.

Why is XRP down today? Developments that moved the price this weekAccording to CryptoTicker, XRP started the week around $1.33. It fell to $1.2827 on October 15 before staging a recovery.

XRP Insights data shows that the cryptocurrency ended the October 9–16 reporting period at $1.30, representing a decline of 6.5%.

Compared with its late-September weekly peak of approximately $1.66, XRP has now surrendered roughly one-fifth of its previous rally.

Meanwhile, shares of Evernorth, trading under the ticker XRPN, fell approximately 9.6% to $15.45 during the week ending October 16.

FinanceFeeds emphasized that the decline in the company’s share price does not, by itself, indicate that Evernorth sold any XRP.

XRP price today: Key support and resistance levels to watchDownside levels: According to 24/7 Wall St., XRP fell as low as $1.28 on October 15. A closing price below this level could open the door to a return toward the trading range seen in August.

XRP ended the week of August 16 at $0.99. FinanceFeeds identifies $1.24, near the lower Bollinger Band, as an additional reference level in a bearish scenario.

Upside levels: FXStreet places XRP’s 100-day moving average at $1.34, while its 50-day and 200-day moving averages are near $1.38. A significant technical resistance area lies around $1.40.

FinanceFeeds identifies $1.38, corresponding to the 200-period moving average on the weekly chart, as an important reference level for a bullish scenario.

Higher resistance levels: 24/7 Wall St. highlights previous closing levels at $1.42 and $1.49. According to FXStreet, the SuperTrend indicator currently stands near $1.47.

These levels are technical reference points, not guaranteed price targets or forecasts. XRP can move beyond them in either direction.

XRP price prediction: Can XRP return to $1.50 before the end of 2026?In its October 18 analysis, 24/7 Wall St. outlined two potential scenarios rather than providing a definitive price target.

Under the first scenario, if XRP closes above $1.42 and spot ETFs record another week of net inflows, the $1.50 level could come within reach.

In the second scenario, a close below $1.28 could lead to another decline toward the August trading range near $0.99.

The publication concluded that XRP appears increasingly unlikely to close above $1.50 before December 31.

However, all XRP price predictions for the end of 2026 depend on specific market conditions. Ripple’s upcoming escrow releases, ETF fund flows, and Bitcoin’s price movements remain among the most important variables determining which scenario may unfold.

XRP vs. Bitcoin: Which has performed better?Bitcoin has demonstrated greater resilience than XRP in recent months.

Since August 2025, Bitcoin has declined approximately 32%, compared with a 59% drop in XRP.

ETF data also highlights this divergence. Bitcoin ETFs attracted $526.7 million on Monday, while XRP ETFs recorded their first weekly outflow in 14 weeks.

Bitcoin is trading approximately 35% below its all-time high. XRP, meanwhile, remains around 64% below its own record.

Although XRP declined alongside Bitcoin, it has not recovered to the same extent during Bitcoin’s rebounds. This divergence is consistent with Bitcoin’s elevated market dominance.

Nevertheless, the performance gap between the two cryptocurrencies could change over time. XRP has also experienced periods when it outperformed Bitcoin.

Is XRP a good investment right now?The answer depends on your investment objectives and how much risk you are prepared to accept.

XRP supporters point to approximately $1.8 billion in cumulative ETF inflows, the growth of RLUSD on the XRP Ledger, and Ripple’s institutional partnerships as positive developments.

Critics, including analysts quoted by CoinDesk, focus on different concerns. These include XRP’s growing circulating supply, relatively limited ETF demand compared with Bitcoin and Ether, and the lack of sustained buying interest despite positive developments involving Ripple.

According to 24/7 Wall St., XRP has declined approximately 29% since the beginning of the year.

Neither side can predict the market’s next move with certainty. Any XRP position should therefore be treated as a high-risk investment.

Frequently asked questionsWhy is XRP going down?The main factors reported this week include the first weekly outflow from spot XRP ETFs in 14 weeks, the upcoming release of up to 1 billion XRP from Ripple’s escrow accounts on November 1, circulating supply growth that has outpaced market value, and weakness in Bitcoin and the broader macroeconomic environment.

Why is XRP down today?XRP is trading near $1.30, with losses ranging from 6.5% to 8.7% over the past week, depending on the data provider. Slowing ETF purchases and Bitcoin’s decline toward $81,000 have contributed to the downward pressure.

What will happen to XRP on November 1?Up to 1 billion XRP will become eligible for release from Ripple’s escrow accounts at 00:00 UTC. Historically, Ripple has re-locked approximately 70% of released tokens, meaning the net amount added to circulation has been considerably smaller.

Is XRP a good investment right now?XRP remains a high-risk investment. Supporters highlight ETF inflows over the past year and the expansion of RLUSD, while critics point to growing supply and subdued demand. Investors should only commit amounts they can afford to lose entirely.

What is MemeToro ($MT)?MemeToro is an early-stage, open-source, AI-powered meme coin launchpad being developed on BNB Chain. $MT is the platform’s utility token.

Stage 9 of the presale is priced at $0.00649, and purchased tokens are delivered directly to buyers’ wallets.

The project remains at an early MVP stage, and the smart contracts responsible for launching tokens have not yet undergone an independent security audit.

What is the MemeToro Stage 9 presale price?The current Stage 9 price is $0.00649 per $MT token.

Each presale stage has a specific target. Once that target is reached, the next stage begins at a higher price. Buyers should verify the current price on the official website before making a purchase.

Is the MemeToro presale legitimate?Several aspects of the project can be independently reviewed, including its publicly available source code, published token contract address, tokenomics, and three completed token audits conducted by Coinsult, SolidProof, and BlockSAFU.

However, there are also risks to consider. The development team operates under pseudonyms, and the smart contracts governing token launches have not yet undergone independent security audits.

Prospective participants should review the published audit reports before making any investment decision.

How can I participate in the MemeToro presale?Visit the official MemeToro website. You can connect a wallet on BNB Smart Chain or choose to pay by credit card.

Before confirming a purchase, verify the contract address and Stage 9 price. Purchased $MT tokens are delivered directly to your wallet.

Never purchase tokens through links sent in unsolicited messages.

Are XRP and Ripple the same thing?No. Ripple is a company, while XRP is the digital asset used on the XRP Ledger.

Although people frequently search for XRP using terms such as “Ripple coin” or “Ripple price,” the quoted market price refers to XRP, not the company.

Where to learn more about MemeToro ($MT)Official website: https://memetoro.com/GitHub: https://github.com/MemeToro/memetoroTokenomics: https://memetoro.com/tokenomicsX: https://x.com/memetoro_mtTelegram: https://t.me/memetoro_mtYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gY0jgWy_DtA

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Planned release date October 26th.

Samuel Westrich · October 2026 · 20 min read

A series in three parts

Dash Platform 5.0 (you are here)
Who moderates Yappr?
How to start or join a Yappr moderation team

Dash Platform 5.0 is one of the biggest Platform releases we have shipped. It has been live on testnet since October 15, and we plan to release it for mainnet next Monday, October 26.

This is the first of three posts. This one covers what is in 5.0 and when it goes live. The second explains how moderation elections work and why Yappr uses them. The third is a step-by-step guide to starting or joining a moderation team.

The short answer

The dates. Platform 5.0 is released for mainnet on Monday, October 26. If enough evonodes have upgraded, the upgrade locks in on Friday, October 30, and protocol version 14 goes live on Sunday, November 8.

The headlines. Apps can moderate themselves, and communities can elect their moderators. Any token can have its own shielded pool, so balances and payments can be private. Apps can charge fees and earn from them, in the open. Data contracts can check their own links and rules without smart contracts. And apps can show provable trending lists, leaderboards and “posts I liked” pages, at a much lower cost.

What to do. Node operators: update with dashmate before October 30. App developers: move to the 5.0 SDKs before November 8.

The timeline
Here is every date, from testnet through to Yappr opening on mainnet:

Figure 1. Every date in one place. The mainnet times come from the epoch schedule and can shift by a few minutes. The Yappr dates are the earliest possible: they assume the contracts are registered the day after activation and a team applies as soon as elections open.

This week we are testing Yappr on testnet end to end: elections, moderation and the new contracts. That is the last big rehearsal before mainnet.

How an upgrade goes live
Releasing 5.0 does not switch mainnet over by itself. The evonodes decide when, and they do it in three steps that follow Platform’s epochs. On mainnet an epoch lasts 9 days and 3 hours.

Figure 2. An upgrade can only lock in at the start of an epoch, and it goes live one full epoch later. Mainnet epochs last 9 days and 3 hours.

Signal. Every evonode running 5.0 marks each block it proposes as ready for protocol 14. The network keeps one up-to-date vote per evonode.
Lock in. At the start of the next epoch, the network counts. If more than 67% of active evonodes signalled 14, the upgrade locks in. From that moment it cannot be stopped, and the activation date is fixed.
Go live. For one full epoch the network keeps running the old rules, which gives everyone time to finish upgrading. Protocol 14 starts with the first block of the epoch after that.

The epoch that matters started on Wednesday, October 21, and ends on Friday, October 30 at about 18:52 UTC. Evonodes that upgrade after the release on Monday and propose a block before Friday count toward the vote. If fewer than 67% have signalled by then, nothing breaks: the network simply counts again at the next boundary, which would move lock-in to November 8 and activation to November 18.

On its first block, protocol 14 also does some one-time setup. It adds two new system contracts, Moderation Charters and App Connect, updates DashPay, Withdrawals and Token History, and prepares the storage the new features need.

If you run a node
Update with dashmate as soon as the release is out, and before Friday, October 30, so that your evonode’s vote counts:

dashmate stop
npm install -g dashmate
dashmate update
dashmate start

Do a full stop and start rather than restarting Platform alone: 5.0 needs Core to reload its RPC settings once, and Drive will not start until it has. Every Platform node needs 5.0 before November 8. A node still on 4.x keeps running until then, with a warning in its logs, and stops at the activation block until it is upgraded. 5.0 is also ready for Dash Core 24.

If you build apps
Move to the 5.0 SDKs (@dashevo/evo-sdk 5.0 and the 5.0 Rust SDK) before November 8. Document ids, the way documents are stored and the proofs clients accept all change at protocol 14, so documents created by older SDKs are refused once it is live. Contracts that charge the new action fees also need every write to state the fee it agrees to, which the 5.0 SDKs handle for you.

What is in 5.0
5.0 is a big release, so here it is at a glance first. Each card jumps to its section.

Moderation: Banlists, suspensions, warnings and removals with public reasons. Elected moderation teams.
Private tokens: A shielded pool for any token, plus non-transferable tokens and once-per-identity airdrops.
Earning: Action fees for app owners and moderators, fee agreements, sponsored gas, cheaper short-lived data.
Smarter contracts: Links the network checks, rules without smart contracts, lists, expiry dates, fair name claims.
Queries: Provable top lists, trending windows, hashtags, “posts I liked” and whole feeds in one proof.
Keys and login: Keys limited to one app, spending budgets and expiry, contract groups, App Connect.
Names and votes: Cheaper usernames and votes, fairer ties, protection against flooding.
Under the hood: Smarter withdrawal limits, shielded credits, Core 24, GroveDB 6.1, hardening.

Apps can moderate themselves
Until now, nothing on Dash Platform could keep an abusive identity out of an app. With 5.0, a data contract can keep a banlist, a suspension list and a warning list, and its moderators can remove documents. Every action carries a public reason, a removed document leaves a record behind, and a removal can be undone within a week. A contract can also hand moderation to a team that masternodes and evonodes elect from public charters, paid from the app’s own fees. The second post in this series explains how that works and why Yappr uses it.

Private tokens with shielded pools
This is one of the parts of 5.0 I am most excited about. Any token can now have its own shielded pool, using the same Orchard technology Platform already uses for private Dash credits. Tokens in the pool are held as private notes, and inside it nobody can see who holds how much, or who paid whom.

Figure 3. Tokens enter a pool from a balance or straight from the issuer, move privately inside it, and leave to any identity or pay for an app action. Inside the pool, nobody can see who holds what or who paid whom.

In and out. Holders move tokens from their balance into the pool, and back out to any identity. Moving in shows the amount, and moving out shows the amount and who receives it. Everything in between is private.
Straight from the issuer. An issuer can mint new tokens directly into the pool, release scheduled distributions into it, and sell tokens straight into it, so tokens can be private from the moment they exist.
Private payments in apps. When an app charges a token for an action, like creating a document, the cost can be paid from the pool.
No identity at all. A private transfer, a withdrawal to a recipient, or a purchase into the pool can pay its fee from Platform’s shielded Dash, so no identity shows up anywhere.

There are trade-offs, and I want to be upfront about them. Each token has its own pool, so a token’s privacy grows with how many people use that pool: a pool holding a handful of notes hides very little. An issuer can require a minimum number of notes, up to 250, before tokens can leave the pool. A token with a pool cannot freeze or confiscate balances, because nobody holds a note in a way an issuer could act on, so those controls have to be switched off for good when the token is created. Pausing a token still works. Whether a token has a pool is decided when the token is created and cannot be changed later.

That makes shielded pools a good fit for things like a community currency, rewards, or paying people in a token, where balances are nobody else’s business.

More for tokens
Tokens can now be non-transferable, for things like points, reputation or allowances that should stay with the person who earned them. A token can offer a once-per-identity claim, an airdrop that every identity can take exactly once. And token payments for documents now respect a token’s pause and freeze rules.

Apps can earn, in the open
Apps could already charge their own tokens for actions. 5.0 adds fees in plain credits, split between the app’s owner and its moderators, and it is designed so users always know what they are paying.

Action fees
A document type can charge a fixed fee in credits for an action: creating, replacing, deleting, transferring, repricing or buying a document. Each fee has two parts. One goes into a pot for the app’s owner, the other into a pot for its moderators. The fee is either a fixed amount, or it follows the network’s fee multiplier, so it stays in step with normal fees. Only actions that actually happen pay, and the fees are fixed when the contract is created, so an app cannot quietly raise them later.

For example, creating a post could cost an extra 0.001 Dash for the moderators and 0.0001 Dash for the app’s owner, on top of the normal network fee.

Paying out the pots
Each pot can be claimed once per epoch, about every nine days. The owner pot goes to the contract owner. The moderators pot is split equally among the moderators, or, for an elected team, the way its charter says. Anyone can look up how much is in each pot and when it was last claimed, with a proof.

No surprise charges
Every write to a priced action states the fee its signer saw, and for fees that follow the multiplier, how much of a rise the signer accepts, for example up to 20%. If the price would be higher than what was signed, the network refuses the write and charges nothing for the attempt. A fall in price is always fine. So an app can never make a transaction you already signed cost more.

Sponsored gas and free usage
For actions paid with a token, the app’s owner can now pay the network fee instead of the user. Combined with optional token costs, this makes “free” apps possible: the app hands out tokens, people use the app for free while their tokens last, and then carry on paying normal fees themselves. A user who adds a priority tip to their own transaction still pays for that tip.

Pay only for how long data lives
Documents that expire (see smarter contracts) pay storage for their lifetime only, not forever. A document that lives for a day costs 4 credits per byte, one that lives a year about 1,360, against 27,000 per byte for permanent storage. The fee is paid out to the epochs the document actually lives through.

Smarter data contracts
Data contracts got a lot more expressive in 5.0, without becoming smart contracts. Everything here is declared in the contract and checked by every node, with no code to run.

Links the network checks
A property can now say what it points at, and the network checks that the target exists whenever a document is created or replaced. A target can be an identity, a contract, a token, one of an identity’s keys, or another document.

"replyTo": { "type": "identifier",
"refersTo": { "type": "deletableDocument", "documentType": "post" } }

Document targets come in three kinds, and the difference matters:

Permanent documents can never disappear, so a link to one can never dangle.
Moderated documents can only be removed by moderators, and every removal leaves a record, so the link always leads somewhere: to the document or to its removal record.
Deletable documents can disappear, so a link to one is checked again every time the linking document changes.

Finding the right target
A link can do more than point at an id:

Find it by its fields. A link can find its target through a unique index and check the target’s fields. A bid can require an auction that is open, has not ended, has a reserve price no higher than the bid, and is not owned by the bidder.
Gate who may write. A type can require its writer to be linked to something, such as “only members of this team may post” or “only people with a profile may comment”.
Pick from a list. A value can be required to be one of the entries in a list on another document, like a removal that must name one of a team’s elected members.
Combine targets. One link can accept any of several targets, or require all of them.
Require things of a contract or a key. A link to a contract can require it to be read-only, a certain age, or moderated by an elected team. A link to a key can require the key’s purpose, and that it is limited to this contract.

A document can carry up to 256 links.

Rules every node enforces
A document type can now state rules about its own fields, and every write must satisfy them. Rules can do arithmetic, compare values and text, check lists, test whether fields are present, and combine all of that with and, or, not and if-then. They can also read three things beyond the document itself:

Totals of other documents, such as “at most 10 listings per seller” or “pledges stay within the goal”.
The previous version of the document, such as “a closed order stays closed” or “a counter never goes down”.
The document it links to, such as “a bid must meet the auction’s reserve price”.

"propertyConstraints": {
"depositCoversOrder": {
"lessThanOrEqual": [{ "multiply": [{ "add": ["price", "fee"] }, "quantity"] }, "deposit"]
}
}

A type can have up to 16 rules. The arithmetic is exact, so an overflow or a division by zero refuses the write instead of quietly rounding.

Rules for deleting
The same kind of rules can decide when an owner may delete a document. A poll can refuse to be deleted while any vote still points at it. A document can also be made deletable only when something else uses it up, which is how a “reserve, then claim” flow works.

Fields that freeze
A contract can now make fields unchangeable, either from the moment a document is created or once a condition holds. A post’s author never changes, its text can be edited for the first five minutes, and its body freezes once it is published.

Lists, sizes and generated values

Lists. A property can be a typed list of up to 1,024 numbers, strings, identifiers or byte values, such as up to 10 unique tags on a post.
“Not yourself”. An identifier can be required to differ from another one, or from the owner: you cannot delegate to yourself, and a buyer cannot be the seller.
Byte limits. A text field can be capped in bytes as well as characters, which matters for emoji and other wide characters.
Generated values. The network can fill in a field from another one, for example a lowercase, look-alike-safe version of a username, so “Bob” and “B0B” cannot both be taken.
Shorter schemas. Identifiers and fixed-size byte fields have short spellings.

Adding a required field later
A contract update can now add a required field. Documents written before the update stay valid without it, because every document records which version of the contract it was written under.

Documents that expire
A document type can set a lifetime, from one hour to one year, after which the network deletes its documents on its own. Stories, invitations and offers no longer need someone to clean them up, and they cost much less to store, as described under earning.

Claiming names fairly
Any contract can now run a “commit, then reveal” flow, the same idea DPNS uses for usernames. You first publish a hidden commitment to a value, then reveal it in a later block. Watchers cannot see the value in time to copy it, and if several people commit to the same value, only the earliest valid commitment can reveal. This stops front-running for names, handles and anything else first-come, first-served.

Encryption declared in the contract
A contract can declare exactly how a field is encrypted: to whom, with which keys, and with which scheme. Wallets read the recipe straight from the contract. This is how private join requests for moderation teams and App Connect logins work.

For contract authors
A few authoring rules change at protocol 14:

Property and document type names can no longer contain a -.
Reordering the indexes in a contract update is now allowed.
A contract update cannot change an integer’s size or sign.
Transient values are never stored, even on a replace.
Unsigned integers now sort by value in indexes. The activation block rewrites existing index keys to match.

Top lists, trends and feeds, with proofs
Social apps count and rank things all day. In 5.0 they can do it on chain, and every answer comes with a proof that a light client can check against the network itself, without trusting the node it asked.

Top lists
A ranked index keeps groups in order by their count, sum or average. “Top 10 posts by likes”, “best-rated stores” or “hashtags with more than 100 posts” read just the entries they return, so the proof stays small however many groups exist. Queries use plain ORDER BY and HAVING, up to 100 results at a time.

Trending windows
A time-range index sorts documents into rolling windows, such as the last hour starting every 15 minutes, or each day. That is what trending lists and “today’s leaderboard” need. A window can also be unique, which gives rules like “one post per day”. Old windows can be dropped automatically after up to a week.

Number bands
The same windows work over any number, so an app can group listings by price band or players by score band.

Likes and follows that cost less
Some documents are really just entries in an index: a like, a follow, a bookmark. 5.0 lets a type store only those index entries, with no full document, which cuts the storage of a small document by more than half. Such types can keep a counter per group instead of an entry per document, start counters at zero so a post with no likes still ranks, and keep an entry in a trending window even after an unlike.

Indexing what a document links to
An index can include a value from the document a link points at, without storing it twice. Indexing replies by the post’s author answers “every reply to my posts” directly.

Hashtags and mentions
A list property can be indexed element by element, so a post appears once under each of its tags. “Posts tagged dash, newest first”, “posts that mention me” and “most used hashtags” all become simple queries.

“Posts I liked” in one proof
A chained query answers a question that spans two document types, like “the posts I liked”, in a single request with a single proof. The client checks the join itself, so a node cannot steer the result.

A whole feed card in one request
A composite query loads a page together with everything it needs, such as quoted posts, counts, profiles, names and whether you liked each post, under one merged proof. Yappr’s home feed is built on these.

Smaller improvements

Queries can use more than one IN clause on consecutive index fields.
Anyone can now list every contract on Platform, in pages, and check the latest version of up to 100 contracts in one proved request.
A range query can prove that a range is empty.

Keys and login
Giving an app a key used to mean trusting it with a lot. 5.0 makes keys much narrower, and adds a proper way to log in to apps with your wallet.

Keys limited to one app
An authentication key can now be bound to a single contract, a single document type, or a contract group. A bound key can only sign document and token actions inside its bounds. A key you give a social app can post and like on that app, and nothing else.

Budgets and expiry dates
A key can also carry a spending budget in credits and an expiry date. Once the budget is spent or the date has passed, the network refuses the key. A game could get a key that can spend at most 0.1 Dash and stops working after 30 days. You can later raise a key’s budget or extend its expiry, and anyone can check, with a proof, how much a key has left. To restrict a key further, you disable it.

Contract groups
An identity can now bundle several contracts, document types and tokens into a contract group, for example all the contracts that make up one app. A key bound to the group covers the whole app. Groups can only grow, and anyone can read what is in a group.

App Connect: log in with your wallet
App Connect is a new system contract for logging in to apps with your wallet:

The app asks to connect.
You approve in your wallet, and choose what the app may do: which contract, how much it may spend, and for how long.
The wallet registers those limited keys on your identity and posts them for the app, encrypted so only the app can read them.
The app picks up its keys, checks they are live, and you are logged in. Your wallet’s own keys never leave the wallet.

The Swift example app already uses the same idea to log a browser in over Bluetooth: you check a pairing code on both screens, choose the key’s lifetime and budget, and your phone hands the browser a limited key directly.

Key fixes
Contract-level encryption and decryption keys that always point at an identity’s latest key now register correctly. Before 5.0, registering one failed.

Names and votes
Contested usernames, the ones masternodes vote on, get cheaper, fairer and harder to abuse.

Cheaper names and votes
The fund to contest a name halves, from 0.2 Dash to 0.1 Dash. A masternode vote costs 80% less, down from 0.0001 Dash to 0.00002 Dash.

Ties go to the earliest
When a contest ends in a tie, the contender who entered first now wins. Before 5.0 the latest one did. This applies to every contest that ends after protocol 14 is live.

No flooding
A contest can hold at most 1,000 contenders, and joining gets more expensive as it fills up. The fund doubles once a contest has 250 contenders, and again every 50 after that:

Contenders already in
Fund to join a name contest

0 to 249
0.1 Dash

250 to 299
0.2 Dash

300 to 349
0.4 Dash

700 to 749
102.4 Dash

950 to 999
3,276.8 Dash

A contender states the most it is willing to pay and is charged the current amount. The final count of a contest now covers every contender.

Contests that always have a winner
A contested index can now be declared without a Lock option, so the contest always ends with a winner, and a lone contender wins as soon as the join window closes. Usernames keep the Lock option. Moderation elections use the new kind.

Cleaner votes
Identifiers among a contest’s values are now stored one way, so writing the same name two ways cannot split one contest into two. And the SDKs now read how many contenders a contest has and set the fund to pay automatically.

Under the hood
Not everything in 5.0 is a feature you will see. These changes make Platform safer, steadier and ready for what comes next.

Smarter withdrawal limits
The daily withdrawal limit used to be a flat 2,000 Dash. It is now 15% of all the credits Platform held a day earlier, and never less than 500 Dash, so it grows with Platform. Withdrawals also have to fit a second limit tied to Dash Core’s credit pool, which never drops below 1,500 Dash. For the first day after activation, the old 2,000 Dash limit still applies.

Withdrawals too small to send
A withdrawal so small that Core can never send it used to be retried forever. It now ends with a clear failed status. Those credits are not refunded.

Shielded credits
Credits can now move straight from an identity into the shielded pool, and from the shielded pool back into an existing identity.

Dash Core 24
5.0 understands Dash Core 24’s new blocks, transactions and masternode types. Protocol 14 needs to be active on mainnet before Core 24’s new rules activate there, which is one more reason to upgrade on time.

GroveDB 6.1
Platform moves to GroveDB 6.1, its storage engine, and fee estimates now size counting and summing trees correctly.

System contract updates

DashPay profiles can carry a Core payment address, a Platform payment address and a shielded address.
Withdrawals gains the failed status.
Token History records once-per-identity claims.
App Connect and Moderation Charters are new.

How documents are stored
Documents are now stored in a new format that records which version of the contract each one was written under, which is what makes adding required fields later possible. New document ids also include a number tied to the transaction that creates them, so every id can only ever be used once. The 5.0 SDKs handle both.

What happens on the activation block
The first block of protocol 14 does some one-time work: it rewrites unsigned number index keys, adds App Connect and Moderation Charters, updates DashPay, Withdrawals and Token History, records a version for every existing contract, and creates the storage the new features need.

Hardening
5.0 also carries a long list of fixes and hardening from audits, testing and testnet. The node also stops rewriting its entire saved state on every block, which makes it lighter to run.

What comes after 5.0
Some things are deliberately not in 5.0. Replacing a seated moderation team through a challenge vote, amending a team’s charter, and appeals all come in later versions. On Yappr, mainnet opens for posting once the network has elected its first moderation team, which at the earliest is about eleven days after protocol 14 goes live.

Let’s ship it!

Samuel

Input Output has outlined a staged rollout for Cardano’s Leios upgrade, targeting an initial three to five times today’s transaction capacity before later governance votes could raise it to 10–15 times.

Summary

Leios targets 3–5x Cardano’s current capacity initially, with later gains toward 10–15x. Activation needs voting-key registration covering roughly 90–95% of delegated stake. Later capacity changes require mainnet load results and separate governance votes. Only 21 of 103 listed Cardano apps have enabled leaderboard transaction tracking. Input Output said in its Oct. 20 update that Leios will arrive with the Dijkstra hard fork, followed by stake pool registration, live network load exercises, and at least two protocol parameter updates.

The developer’s plan separates the network upgrade from the steps needed to activate Leios and permit more traffic. Pools must first register new voting keys, with the current estimate requiring roughly 90–95% of delegated stake before Leios can operate.

“The hard fork makes the protocol available,” Input Output wrote. The update gives no fixed Dijkstra activation date. Its proposed capacity gains remain subject to mainnet results and community approval.

Cardano Leios needs pool registration after Dijkstra Under Input Output’s rollout plan, stake pool operators will generate BLS voting keys after the hard fork and register them through updated pool certificates. Each registration becomes active at the next epoch boundary.

BLS signatures allow hundreds of pool votes to be combined into a compact certificate. Input Output says Leios needs votes representing at least 75% of all active stake to certify an endorser block, which carries references to transactions awaiting processing.

Registration must sit comfortably above that threshold to allow for pools that are offline or slow to respond. The developer estimates participation from roughly the top 500–900 pools, although the exact activation requirement depends on parameters still being finalized.

Pools without a registered BLS key can continue producing Praos blocks, according to the update, but cannot vote on Leios endorser blocks. Key registration requires no separate vote from delegated representatives or the Constitutional Committee.

The preparation follows Cardano’s July 18 van Rossem hard fork, which moved mainnet to Protocol Version 11, as crypto.news previously reported. Intersect confirmed that upgrade after testing and approval from the network’s governance bodies.

Capacity changes require separate governance approval Before Dijkstra, Input Output plans a constitutional update covering the new protocol parameters and the limits within which governance can change them. Its roadmap assigns preparation of those guardrails to the Intersect Parameters Committee, with the Plutus team updating the guardrails script.

The developer lists different approval thresholds for each stage. The constitutional amendment needs support from delegated representatives representing 75% of stake and two-thirds of the Constitutional Committee.

For the hard fork, the stated requirements are 60% of DRep stake, 51% of stake pool operator stake, and two-thirds of the committee. Later throughput changes require 67% of DRep stake, 51% of SPO stake, and two-thirds of committee members.

Once Leios is operating, Input Output plans controlled bursts of mainnet traffic to measure block delivery, voting speed, certificate reliability and the processing room left on nodes. Each proposed capacity step should include measurements from the preceding settings.

The initial target uses today’s Praos ceiling of roughly 4.5 kilobytes of transactions per second as its baseline. Multiplying that figure by the announced ranges gives approximately 13.5–22.5 TxkB/s initially and 45–67.5 TxkB/s at the later target.

These figures measure transaction data capacity, not a fixed number of transactions per second. The number of transactions that fit depends on their size.

Input Output says governance can change the Leios limits without another hard fork, provided the proposals remain within the approved constitutional guardrails.

Earlier testing reached roughly six times the Praos ceiling In an Aug. 20 engineering account, the Leios team recorded a MusashiNet peak of 26.8 TxkB/s against a Praos mainnet ceiling of 4.51 TxkB/s. The figures produce a ratio of approximately 5.94 times.

The team said the 41-day Earth phase involved more than 127,000 blocks and 63 registered pools. Traffic came from synthetic load generation and participating operators, so the results describe testnet performance rather than customer demand.

Its account documented implementation problems, including memory leaks, chain forks, stalled synchronization, and a network halt caused by handling an invalid certificate as a fatal error. The team said it corrected the faults.

For mainnet, Input Output’s Oct. 20 plan starts with conservative settings because the live network includes approximately 2,700 registered pools using different machines, connections and configurations.

Leios retains Praos ranking blocks and adds endorser blocks when pending traffic exceeds what a ranking block can carry, the developer explained. Transactions processed through endorser blocks are expected to reach the ledger in roughly 45–60 seconds.

Dijkstra preparation has proceeded through separate software releases. September’s node 11.1.1 release addressed operational issues ahead of later versions intended to introduce the new era’s features.

Intersect’s earlier two-phase Dijkstra roadmap placed Linear Leios in the first phase and Peras in a separate upgrade targeted for the second quarter of 2027. Its schedule described delivery dates as estimates subject to testing and governance.

App leaderboard covers projects with tracking enabled In a separate Oct. 20 X post, Cardano said 21 of the 103 apps listed on its website had enabled transaction tracking. Projects appear on the leaderboard once tracking is switched on, and participation is open to all projects building on Cardano.

The figures put tracking participation at approximately 20.4% of listed apps. Cardano’s statement describes which projects contribute to the leaderboard; it does not establish transaction totals for the remaining 82 apps.

On network economics, Input Output said more than 85% of epoch rewards currently come from Cardano’s Reserve. Its update cited a CIP-164 estimate that fee income would require sustained traffic of roughly 50–70 TxkB/s to reach break-even.

“Leios creates a route to that level of activity,” the developer wrote. “It does not create demand by itself.”

Dijkstra’s other planned features include nested transactions, account enhancements, guard scripts, Plutus V4, freely withdrawable staking rewards and a pledge-leverage parameter. According to Input Output, those changes arrive with the hard fork and do not depend on Leios reaching its later capacity targets.

Basic Attention Token [BAT] saw a daily price gain of 12.28% at press time, as the expanding ecosystem around Brave triggered renewed attention across the market.

The price surge was accompanied by heightened market participation, with the token’s 24-hour trading volume also jumping 92.35% to $43.24 million.

Notably, this rally emerged as Brave continued its ecosystem expansion, with its browser reaching 128 million monthly active users.

For context, Brave is a privacy-focused web browser that utilizes BAT to reward participants for viewing advertisements and supporting content creators. 

Particularly, Brave Rewards Card registrations reportedly crossed 200,000, reflecting growing interest in the  financial services of the company.

The role of BAT within Brave’s rewards and payments ecosystem also triggered attention as the platform expanded its reach.

Spot outflows meet aggressive futures buying
Additionally, BAT’s Spot and Futures markets offered further insight into its price recovery, beyond Brave’s ecosystem expansion.

 According to CoinGlass, BAT had $434.06K in negative Spot Netflows at press time, indicating that withdrawals outnumbered deposits.

Notably, the latest reading followed substantial exchange inflows earlier in October, including one daily spike exceeding $2 million on the 13th of October. The return to negative Netflows therefore reflected a reduced immediate exchange-side supply.

Additionally, BAT’s Futures Taker CVD indicator remained taker-buy dominant at reporting time, suggesting a more robust cumulative aggressive buying than selling.

These readings together supported BAT’s price recovery, even though a sustained demand remained necessary to extend the price rally.

Source: BAT Spot Netflow on CoinGlass
Negative funding persists despite heavy short liquidations
On the contrary, the derivatives’ positioning continued to reflect considerable bearish sentiment, despite BAT’s market expansion. In particular, the OI-Weighted Funding Rate remained negative at -0.0072%. Also notably, the earlier October readings registered deeper negative spikes, highlighting periods of stronger bearish positioning.

The liquidation figures, however, revealed a significant pressure on the short sellers, with the token recording $197.89K in shorts against $52.53K in longs. Consequently, the short positions accounted for nearly 80% of the total liquidations.

This imbalance ultimately reflected losses among the bearish traders, although the negative funding implied continued short-side positioning.

Source: CoinGlass
BAT breaks pennant resistance – Is $0.2160 next?
BAT’s daily chart structure showed a rapid price recovery from $0.1000 before facing a rejection around the $0.2160 zone.

Following the price rejection, Basic Attention Token subsequently consolidated within a bullish pennant flag while defending the $0.1715 support. The most recent candle, however, pushed above the pennant’s descending resistance, reaching $0.1967.

In fact, this emerging structural breakout reinforced the bullish continuation outlook, even though the daily candle had not confirmed the move. The Chaikin Money Flow, meanwhile, remained positive at 0.19, suggesting a continued capital inflow.

The RSI indicator, on the other hand, stood at 66.86, below its Moving Average of 73.85, marking a cooling bullish strength. The indicator nevertheless remained above the 50 threshold, supporting the broader bullish structure.

Ultimately, in case BAT sustains its pennant breakout, the token stands a better chance of revisiting the $0.2160 supply zone again.

Source: BAT/USDT Chart on TradingView

Final Summary

Brave’s growing user base coincided with BAT’s rally and renewed trading activity.
BAT broke above its bullish pennant, opening another potential test of $0.2160 resistance.

Aster DEX and BNB Chain are running a bStocks campaign until October 31 with up to $50,000 in $NVDAB and $20,000 in $ASTER for spot and perpetual traders of tokenized US stocks.

@Aster_DEX and @BNBCHAIN are running a trading competition until October 31 for users of bStocks, the tokenized US stocks from @bstocksfinance. The campaign offers up to $70,000 in rewards across two tracks, one for spot traders and one for perpetual futures users.

How the rewards workSpot traders of five bStocks, including Nvidia, Circle and Strategy, share up to $50,000 in $NVDAB. The pool starts at $10,000 and grows to $50,000 as total trading volume passes $50 million and $100 million.

A further $20,000 in $ASTER is reserved for perpetual traders. To qualify, users must post at least $500 in bStocks as collateral and reach $5,000 in perpetual volume. Rewards are capped at $50 per user.

Entrants must register and switch off Account Privacy. Their wallets and trading volumes will be shown publicly. Aster's own site lists the promotion as a bStocks Trading and Collateral Campaign with up to $70,000 in rewards.

What bStocks arebStocks are issued by a Binance affiliate.

Aster is one of the DeFi venues where they can be used.

The product has grown quickly. More broadly, BNB Chain says

Campaigns like this are a common way for exchanges and chains to build liquidity in new asset classes. For $ASTER and $BNB holders, the volume thresholds in the spot pool are the number to watch before the October 31 deadline.

SourcesCrypto Briefing: Binance's bStocks crosses $1 billion in assets
BNB Chain Blog: Access 709+ tokenized stocks on BNB Chain
Trust Wallet: Access bStocks on Trust Wallet

Stellar, a blockchain platform focused on facilitating fast and low-cost cross-border transactions, reported significant growth in stablecoin transactions, tokenized asset adoption, and developer activity in its third-quarter update released ahead of the Meridian conference.

Key network and ecosystem developmentsAccording to Stellar’s latest report, stablecoin volume on the network saw a 121% increase from the previous quarter. The total value of real-world assets (RWAs) tokenized on Stellar reached $4.1 billion by the end of the quarter. These numbers reflect growing demand for blockchain-powered payments and financial products.

Stablecoins play a crucial role on the network, supporting digital dollar transfers and settlement, while tokenized assets enable the blockchain-based representation of traditional financial instruments. With broadening adoption in these sectors, Stellar aims to become a leader in the evolving digital finance landscape.

Stellar recorded $4.1 billion in real-world assets, a 121% jump in stablecoin volumes, and 3,922 monthly active developers, underscoring surging use in the network’s core areas.

The quarterly report also notes that Stellar has added new Tier 1 validators, implemented two protocol upgrades, and maintained 99.99% network uptime. The number of active monthly developers reached 3,922, reflecting a steady increase in community engagement and technical contributions.

This growth highlights Stellar’s strategy to enhance infrastructure, reliability, and ecosystem development as the network positions itself for broader institutional and retail use.

Mini dictionary: Real-world assets (RWAs) are traditional assets such as currencies, commodities, or stocks that have been tokenized and represented on a blockchain network to enable easier trading and settlement.

Stablecoin and tokenized asset surgeRecent data confirm that real-world asset tokenization has emerged as a major driver of activity on Stellar. As banks and financial institutions increasingly explore blockchain for settlements and asset issuance, networks supporting RWAs, including Stellar, are attracting new use cases and users.

The rapid increase in stablecoin volumes illustrates heightened interest in digital dollar and fiat-backed transactions. Combined with rising developer contributions, these trends point to substantial growth across multiple aspects of the Stellar ecosystem.

However, analysts note that an increase in network activity and tokenized value does not directly translate into higher demand or price appreciation for XLM, the native asset of the network. Market movements in XLM still depend on trading dynamics and broader cryptocurrency market conditions.

MetricQ2 2026Q3 2026Stablecoin volumeLower by 121%Up 121% quarter over quarterReal-World Assets (RWAs)Not specified$4.1 billionActive monthly developersNot specified3,922XLM price technical outlookXLM, Stellar’s native token, is trading near $0.176 as of the most recent updates. Crypto analyst Crypto With Gopal has identified a falling wedge formation on XLM’s price chart. The analyst stated that a breakout above $0.180 could trigger a move toward $0.190, with a broader upside target of $0.220 if buying momentum continues.

Crypto With Gopal highlighted that a breakthrough above $0.180 may lead to a price reversal targeting $0.190, with $0.220 as a longer-term resistance point.

Traders are closely monitoring the $0.180 resistance area. A sustained move above this level could signal a shift from the current consolidation phase, but analysts caution that technical breakout patterns alone may not guarantee further price recovery.

Conversely, if XLM fails to hold its support near $0.174, the token could face renewed selling pressure, potentially slowing the recent recovery effort despite the network’s positive fundamentals.

Meridian conference and upcoming catalystsThe upcoming Meridian conference, organized by Stellar, is expected to provide more insights into the network’s ongoing development, partnerships, and overall growth strategy. The event will focus on advances in payments, stablecoins, and tokenized assets as Stellar seeks to consolidate its role in the digital finance sector.

The ability of Stellar to maintain momentum, strengthen its ecosystem, and translate network usage into value for XLM will be key areas of focus for both investors and analysts in the near term.

In brief Zcash rose 8.5% in 24 hours to $1,215.85, the best performer among the largest tokens. Total crypto market cap climbed 1.68% to $2.78 trillion, while the Fear & Greed Index sits at a neutral 51. Oil near $110 a barrel and Treasury yields above 5% remain the main threat to the rebound. Crypto markets bounced on Tuesday, and Zcash led the rebound. The privacy coin rose 8.5% in 24 hours to $1,215.85, lifting its market capitalization to $20.57 billion.

Bitcoin gained 1.57% to $83,195, and Ethereum climbed 2.90% to $2,463.35. Nearly every major crypto asset that isn’t a stablecoin finished the day higher.

Myriad: How high will Bitcoin go? Click to make your prediction.The broader market followed. Total crypto market capitalization rose 1.68% to $2.78 trillion, and the CMC20 index, which tracks the 20 largest cryptocurrencies, gained 1.45% to $169.87 per unit, meaning the samller caps played a more relevant role in today’s surge. This was also expected after days of heavy losses, especially among the coins with the largest market capitalizations and most trading volume.

The bounce followed a rebound in tech. Chip and AI stocks recovered on Monday from last week's selloff, with the Nasdaq Composite gaining about 1.1%, and crypto has often moved in step with technology shares. Bitcoin also found buyers near $80,000 to $81,000

Money from traditional investors helped. Bitcoin and other crypto exchange-traded funds, which let investors hold the assets through a regular brokerage account, recorded net inflows of $526.7 million,. Monday's inflows were the biggest in a month.

Bitcoin ETF flows. Image: DecryptTreasury yields remain the main pressure point, with the 10-year note above 5%. A yield is the annual return investors demand for lending to the U.S. government. When it climbs, safe bonds compete with riskier assets like crypto and stocks for the same money.

The macro backdrop is still tense. Brent crude oil trades near $110 a barrel, and expensive oil feeds inflation by raising the cost of fuel, shipping and goods. Higher inflation raises the odds that the Federal Reserve keeps rates high or even raises them again, which pushes bond yields up. Higher yields pull money out of risk assets, so crypto tends to fall when oil spikes and rise when it cools.

Zcash outran everyone for several reasons. It had dropped about 25% over the past month, so the bounce partly reflects an oversold market in which traders who had borrowed to bet on higher prices were already forced out through liquidations. Liquidations happen when an exchange automatically closes a borrowed-money position after losses reach a set limit, which adds selling pressure. With that selling spent, the price had room to snap back.

Zcash price data. Image: Investing.comZcash also has its own set of potential catalysts. Developers are due to decide on the NU7 network upgrade today, and traders often buy ahead of such events. Privacy coins have also been strong lately. Competing privacy coin Monero is up 15.29% over seven days to $609.87.

Zcash is a high-beta asset, meaning it moves harder than the market in both directions. It’s up 8.5% today compared to Bitcoin's 1.57% gain. It is up only 1.17% over the last seven days, so the day's jump has not yet erased the month's decline.

Crypto market sentiment at the moment is broadly neutral. The Fear & Greed Index, a 0-to-100 gauge of market mood where lower readings mean fear and higher readings mean greed, reads 51. The CoinMarketCap Altcoin Season Index stands at 60. A reading of 75 or higher signals altcoin season, 25 or below signals Bitcoin season, and 60 sits in between, so neither camp has control.

The next test is policy. The Federal Reserve meets on October 27 and 28, and traders will watch whether it signals further rate hikes.

Disclaimer

The views and opinions expressed by the author are for informational purposes only and do not constitute financial, investment, or other advice.

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You might wonder: Is Nexo legit and safe? Here's what we can back up with facts you can check yourself. 

Nexo has operated since 2018. As of Q2 2026, more than 10 million clients use Nexo worldwide, and the platform has paid them over $1.5 billion in interest.

In the United States, Nexo works with Bakkt, an NYSE-listed company whose US trading infrastructure is backed by a New York BitLicense and broad US money transmitter license coverage. Nexo's infrastructure is independently audited against SOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27001, and other internationally recognized frameworks, and its SOC 3 report is public.

This guide covers what Nexo is, who it works with, how it's audited, how your account is protected, and the risks to weigh.

The short answerTrack record: Nexo has operated since 2018 and, as of Q2 2026, serves more than 10 million clients worldwide. Galaxy Research ranks it the third-largest CeFi crypto lender it tracks.Licensed US partner: Bakkt, an NYSE-listed company whose operating subsidiaries hold a New York BitLicense and state money transmitter licenses across the US, powers custody and trading services for Nexo clients in the United States.Independently audited: SOC 2 Type 2 three years in a row, a public SOC 3 report, and ISO 27001, 27017, and 27018.Protected by default: Every withdrawal passes through an anti-scam engine in real time, and data is protected with TLS and AES 256-bit encryption.What is Nexo?Nexo is a premier digital assets wealth platform built to help clients grow, manage, and preserve their crypto. Operating since 2018, it serves more than 10 million clients across 200+ jurisdictions, has processed over $465 billion, has paid more than $1.5 billion in interest to clients, and runs a loan book of over $1.7 billion. 

Important note: All figures are global, as of Q2 2026, and are updated quarterly.

Nexo brings together:

Flexible Yield and Fixed-term Yield to generate yield of up to 16% per year on crypto assets, with or without a set term. Crypto-backed loans to borrow against holdings without selling them, including Zero-interest Credit.Trading tools to buy, sell, and swap digital assets.Nexo Private, for portfolios of $100,000 or more, where clients get a dedicated relationship manager, priority assistance, and bespoke OTC services on custom terms. Explore Nexo Private.The Nexo Card (available in the EEA and the UK): the first dual-mode crypto card, with no monthly, annual, or inactivity fees. Borrow against your crypto in Credit Mode or spend it directly in Debit Mode, switch with one tap, and pay at more than 100 million merchants worldwide. 24/7 client care from a dedicated team.Important note: The Nexo Card is currently unavailable for US residents. Availability of Yield products and specific crypto asset support for US clients remains subject to state-level regulatory requirements and Bakkt partner integration terms.

How does Nexo rank among crypto lenders?Galaxy Research ranks Nexo the third-largest CeFi crypto lender it tracks, measured by crypto-collateralized loan book. At the end of Q2 2026, Nexo held a 7.51% market share, up 49 basis points on the quarter. 

Read the full analysis in Galaxy Research's The State of Crypto Leverage Q2 2026, published August 17, 2026.

Who holds Nexo clients' assets in the US?Bakkt powers institutional-grade custody and trading infrastructure for Nexo clients in the United States.

Bakkt is an NYSE-listed company (NYSE: BKKT). Through regulated operating subsidiaries like Bakkt Crypto Solutions, LLC, and Bakkt Trust Company LLC, it holds a New York BitLicense alongside money transmitter licenses across multiple US jurisdictions. Bakkt positions its infrastructure as purpose-built for financial institutions, fintech platforms, and digital asset firms.

Bakkt announced the partnership on February 17, 2026, to support Nexo's US offering and enable compliant digital asset custody and trading services for Nexo clients.

You can read the announcement on Bakkt's investor relations website and check Nexo's partner overview on the Nexo Fundamentals page.

What do Nexo's certifications actually mean?Nexo’s information security practices are assessed against internationally recognized frameworks. An independent audit firm reviews SOC 2 Type 2 every year. Accredited certification bodies issue the ISO 27001, 27017, and 27018 certificates and check them through periodic surveillance audits. CSA STAR Level 1 is a self-assessment that Nexo publishes openly. A certification only helps if you know what it tests, so here is each one in plain terms.

SOC 2 Type 2, audited by A-LIGN, three years in a row. 

What it checks: An external audit firm examines how Nexo handles data and who can access it, then tests whether those controls continue to work over time, not just on a single day. The 2025 audit also covers privacy. Why it matters: It's the difference between a company saying it has safeguards and an auditor confirming they operated.SOC 3 Type 2, the public version.

What it is: the same evaluation, written for a general audience. The full SOC 2 report contains sensitive details, so it isn't published. SOC 3 is the open summary, based on the AICPA's criteria for security, availability, and confidentiality. Why it matters: It makes the audit result public. Nexo can share the outcome openly instead of just saying it passed.ISO 27001 - the international standard for managing information security. 

What it checks: Whether a company runs security as a continuous, documented process: finding risks, setting controls, and reviewing them regularly. Why it matters: It shows repeatable discipline, not one-off fixes.ISO 27017, for cloud services (certified by RINA). 

What it checks: The additional controls that services running in the cloud need. Why it matters: Nexo's platform runs on cloud infrastructure, so this covers where client data actually lives.ISO 27018, for personal data in the cloud (certified by RINA). 

What it checks: How personal information, such as client identity details, is handled and kept private in cloud environments. Why it matters: It puts the handling of your personal data under an audited international standard.CSA STAR Level 1, a public cloud registry entry. 

What it is: The Cloud Security Alliance is an industry group that sets best practices for cloud security. It asks providers 261 questions about how they manage and control their cloud systems. CSA STAR Level 1 is a self-assessment of Nexo’s cloud controls, published in CSA’s public registry.Why it matters: The answers are open to everyone, so you can read them and compare them with other providers.Taken together, they answer three questions: does Nexo follow recognized standards, has an outside party tested that it does, and can you read the results yourself? For background on the latest audit cycle, see Nexo completes third consecutive SOC 2 and SOC 3 audits.

Important note: Security audits and certifications assess information security controls.

What US licenses does Nexo hold directly?Nexo Financial LLC holds a California Financing Law license (No. 60DBO-109416), issued by the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation (DFPI), permitting state-regulated lending activities. Custody and digital asset trading services for US clients are facilitated through its licensed partner, Bakkt. 

What do clients say about Nexo?On Trustpilot, Nexo is rated 4.4 out of 5 from 18,751 reviews (as of October 20, 2026). Read client reviews on Trustpilot.

Nexo's client care team is available 24/7. Clients with a portfolio of $100,000 or more can join Nexo Private and get access to high-touch wealth solutions, priority assistance, exclusive OTC services, event passes, and more exclusive benefits.

How does Nexo protect your account?Nexo runs protection on every account and every transaction by default, and gives clients tools to add more.

Built in

Anti-scam engine. Every withdrawal is analyzed in real time before funds leave the platform. If something looks off, the client sees a plain-language prompt explaining the concern, and in rare high-risk cases, a transaction may be briefly paused for review.Encryption. Data in transit is secured using modern TLS encryption, while data at rest is safeguarded with AES-256 encryption—the same standard utilized by leading financial institutions and tier-one cloud providers worldwide.Yours to switch on

Two-factor authentication (2FA). Once you turn it on, it’s required at login and for sensitive actions: withdrawals, Address Book edits, and changes to security settings. Even with your password, no one can move funds without the second factor. An authenticator app is stronger than SMS.Anti-phishing code. A personal code that appears in the footer of every legitimate Nexo email. An email without it didn't come from Nexo.Address whitelisting. Withdrawals are locked to saved addresses (up to 500), with a configurable Extra Security delay on newly added ones.Channel validator. Any email address, social handle, or URL claiming to be Nexo can be checked at nexo.com/channel-validator.For the full walkthrough, read How Nexo's security works, and how to strengthen your account.

What industry awards has Nexo won?Independent industry awards include:

Consumer Lending Product of the Year (2026): FinTech Breakthrough Award for Zero-interest Credit, covered on FinTech Breakthrough. Best PayTech for CX (2025): recognized at The Digital Banker Excellence in Digital CX Awards, covered on Crypto Times.Best Loyalty Program (2025): recognized by The Digital Banker. Best Crypto Wallet (2025): winner at the 9th Annual FinTech Breakthrough Awards, announced via GlobeNewswire.Consumer Payments Innovation Award (2024): FinTech Breakthrough Award for the Nexo Card, covered on TradingView.What other initiatives does Nexo have in the US? Nexo is making history as the first-ever Title Partner of the Nexo Dallas Open—a premier ATP 500 event and the only indoor championship on the U.S. ATP Tour. Kicking off in 2026, this multi-year alliance goes far beyond sports sponsorship.

Nexo is driving its "Wealth Forward" vision directly into the local community by partnering in a major court resurfacing project at the Ford Center at The Star.

By modernizing playing surfaces and expanding access for youth and recreational players, Nexo is delivering both a next-generation fan experience and a tangible, positive impact across North Texas.

What should you know about Nexo before using it?Nexo’s ongoing commitment to security is reflected in its audits, certifications, and carefully chosen industry partners. A few factors are still worth understanding before you start using any crypto platform:

Market movements. Crypto prices can move quickly, in either direction.Borrowing against crypto. If the value of your collateral falls significantly, part of it may be sold to repay the loan.Changing rates. Yields and borrowing rates can change over time, and past rates don't predict future ones.Evolving rules. Crypto regulation continues to develop.Frequently asked questions1. What is Nexo? 

Nexo is a premier digital assets wealth platform that helps clients grow, manage, and preserve their crypto. It has operated since 2018 and serves more than 10 million clients worldwide (Q2 2026), with yield products, crypto-backed loans, trading tools, Private Clients services for portfolios of $100,000 or more, and 24/7 client care. Not every service is available in every jurisdiction.

2. Is Nexo a credible platform?

Yes. Nexo is an operating company that has been active since 2018. It works with Bakkt, an NYSE-listed US partner; Galaxy Research ranks it third among the CeFi crypto lenders it tracks; and its information security controls have been independently audited, with SOC 2 Type 2 reports for three consecutive years.

3. Is Nexo safe? 

Nexo’s information security controls are independently audited under SOC 2 Type 2 and certified to ISO 27001, and its US partner, Bakkt, is an NYSE-listed company whose subsidiaries hold a New York BitLicense and state-level money transmitter licenses. Withdrawals pass through a real-time anti-scam engine, and data is protected via modern TLS and AES-256 encryption. These audits cover information security, not financial solvency, and Nexo products aren’t insured by the FDIC or SIPC.

4. How does Nexo rank among crypto lenders? 

Galaxy Research ranks Nexo the third-largest CeFi crypto lender it tracks, by crypto-collateralized loan book, with a 7.51% market share at the end of Q2 2026.

5. Who holds Nexo clients' assets in the US? 

Bakkt powers custody and trading infrastructure for Nexo clients in the United States. Bakkt is an NYSE-listed company whose operating entities hold a New York BitLicense and money transmitter licenses across multiple US states.

6. What do Nexo's certifications mean? 

SOC 2 Type 2, audited by A-LIGN, tests that Nexo's data controls keep working over time. SOC 3 is the public summary of that audit. ISO 27001, 27017, and 27018 are international standards for information security management, cloud controls, and personal data in the cloud. CSA STAR Level 1 is a self-assessment of Nexo’s cloud controls, published in CSA’s public registry.

These materials are accessible globally, and the availability of this information does not constitute access to the services described, which services may not be available in certain jurisdictions. These materials are for general information purposes only and not intended as financial, legal, tax, or investment advice, offer, solicitation, recommendation, or endorsement to use any of the Nexo Services and are not personalized, or in any way tailored to reflect particular investment objectives, financial situation or needs. Yield and interest rates are not guaranteed, are subject to change, and may vary by eligibility, selected term, and wealth tier. References to Yield are product names and do not represent rates of return or performance. Nexo products are not bank deposits and are not insured by the FDIC or SIPC. Digital assets are subject to a high degree of risk, including but not limited to volatile market price dynamics, regulatory changes, and technological advancements. The past performance of digital assets is not a reliable indicator of future results. Digital assets are not money or legal tender, are not backed by the government or by a central bank, and most do not have any underlying assets, revenue stream, or other source of value. Independent judgment based on personal circumstances should be exercised, and consultation with a qualified professional is recommended before making any decision. 

Services are provided by Bakkt Crypto Solutions, LLC. Digital assets may be held or serviced by third-party custodians, exchanges, lenders, or other service providers. Your ability to access or recover assets depends on the provider’s operational resilience and financial condition. If a provider becomes insolvent or experiences an operational disruption, you may experience delays in access to assets and could lose some or all of your assets. For more information, visit Bakkt Disclosures.

NEAR Protocol has added XRP to near.com, letting users deposit from the XRP Ledger, swap and pay with confidential transactions powered by NEAR Intents.

XRP is now available on near.com, the all-in-one crypto app from @NEARProtocol, with confidential transactions enabled by default. Users can deposit $XRP directly from the XRP Ledger, swap it for other assets and use it to make payments.

What the XRP integration offersThe listing means XRP holders can move funds into the app without first converting to another asset. Once inside, they can swap XRP for other tokens or spend it, all from a single interface.

Privacy is the main selling point. @XRP transactions on near.com are confidential by default, which keeps sender addresses, amounts and routing off public $NEAR explorers. A recipient receives the funds without seeing the sender's address or wallet history. Routing is handled by @near_intents, NEAR's system for swapping assets across chains.

The feature builds on NEAR's wider privacy push. CoinDesk reported that near.com launched in February as a super app, with a confidential mode that keeps balances, transfers and trading activity private within the network's security framework. NEAR co-founder Illia Polosukhin said at the time that onchain transparency is not realistic for day-to-day use.

How confidential execution worksAccording to NEAR's own documentation on Confidential Intents, transactions run on a NEAR private shard, a dedicated execution environment operated by a decentralized set of independent, permissioned validators. It connects to NEAR mainnet through a bridge based on trusted execution environments (TEEs). When a user goes confidential on near.com, deposits, transfers and swaps stay out of public view, and funds can be moved between confidential and public accounts at any time.

The design has limits. An explainer from the LeoDex exchange notes that this is confidentiality rather than anonymity, because deposits into and withdrawals out of the system remain visible on public chains.

Demand for the feature appears to be real. NEAR said in a general availability announcement that over 40% of volume across near.com used Confidential Mode within weeks of launch. That figure comes from NEAR itself and has not been independently verified.

For XRP holders, the addition offers a way to swap and pay across chains without exposing wallet history on public explorers. The XRP Ledger is also among the networks supported by NEAR's recently launched NEAR Business treasury platform, according to Crypto Briefing.

SourcesCoinDesk: NEAR launches Near.com super app
NEAR: Confidential Intents
Crypto Briefing: NEAR launches crypto treasury platform

Ethereum staking hit a new record in the third quarter of 2026, but investors found themselves earning smaller yields as rewards were spread across a wider pool of staked ETH.

According to Bitwise's latest quarterly staking report, 43.8 million ETH, which is nearly 36% of the total supply, was locked into staking at the end of September. At the same time, annualized staking yields averaged 2.63%, down from 2.81% in the prior quarter.

"As more ETH is staked, rewards are distributed across a larger pool, reducing the yield earned on each ETH," the researchers wrote.

Staked Ethereum QoQ. Source: BitwiseInstitutional staking drives Ethereum inflowsEthereum recorded net staking inflows of just under 2 million ETH in the third quarter, its sixth consecutive quarter of positive flows.

Institutional staking has been a big driver of these flows. Bitwise pointed to Bitmine, the leading Ethereum treasury company led by Tom Lee, whose staking rose more than 1,000% from 410,000 ETH in December to 5.07 million ETH as of Sept. 27.

Newly issued ETH accounted for more than 96% of Ethereum's staking yield, leaving the rest to come from transaction tips and revenue from ordering transactions (MEV).

In the same period, Ethereum network revenue fell to roughly $40.6 million from $63 million in the second quarter.

Solana staking hits record 69% of supplySolana's active staking numbers also hit a record, climbing to 440.5 million SOL, totaling 69% of the total supply. Similar to Ethereum, gross staking yields fell around 6%, with newly issued tokens making up 90% of returns.

The network recorded 14.2 billion transactions, up 45% from the second quarter, while average transaction costs stayed mostly flat.

Solana Non-Vote Transactions. Source: BitwiseTransaction fees jumped 49% to $76 million, driven mostly by memecoin trading. Tokenized equities trading volume climbed 45% to more than $6.9 billion.