The backlog may reduce voter turnout, potentially affecting election outcomes and shifting market confidence in the Texas Senate race.

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Slipstream's innovative MEV capture and dynamic fees could redefine DeFi liquidity incentives, challenging existing DEX models and boosting provider returns.

The post Slipstream launches with Aero, featuring protocol-level MEV capture and dynamic fees appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The request could heighten NATO-Russia tensions, potentially escalating military involvement and impacting geopolitical stability.

The post Finnish president urges Musk to extend Starlink over Russia for Ukraine aid appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

This unique bear market suggests a maturing Bitcoin ecosystem, with increased resilience and investor confidence despite market downturns.

The post Glassnode identifies first Bitcoin bear market without price drop below realized price appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Netanyahu's UN speech may solidify Israel's hardline foreign policy, impacting diplomatic relations and regional stability amid election tensions.

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Bitcoin Magazine

SEC Commissioner Hester ‘Crypto Mom’ Peirce Advocates Privacy-Preserving Tech 

Outgoing Securities and Exchange Commission Commissioner Hester Peirce has said that regulators should rethink how they monitor the financial system, and to press for less personal data collection, not more. 

In a speech Wednesday focusing on digital identity systems and decentralized networks, Peirce took aim at know-your-customer and anti-money-laundering rules.

U.S. regulators are now racing ahead with crypto rulemaking. Peirce, who earned the nickname “crypto mom” for her friendly approach to watchdogging the space, is set to leave the SEC in November. 

“Today society is at a crossroads,” Peirce said at the SIFMA’s Digital Assets Conference in New York. 

“Down one path lies the status quo: more data collection, more intermediary surveillance, more ‘know your customer’ requirements that turn our financial rails into a panopticon.”

“Down the other path lies an opportunity to use new technologies to improve our ability to catch criminals while collecting less personal information than ever before, and monitoring more sparingly to protect Americans’ privacy.”

Peirce argued that piling up ever more data on law-abiding customers to help find criminals doesn’t work. In her view, bigger “haystacks” make the needles harder to find, while every stored data point raises the risk of leaks or misuse. 

She criticized a regulatory mindset fixated on “data go up,” comparing it to crypto enthusiasts’ obsession with rising prices.

Peirce pointed to cryptographic tools such as zero-knowledge proofs and attribute-based credentials, which can confirm facts like a person’s age, accredited-investor status, or absence from sanctions lists without revealing the underlying personal details. 

She also urged the SEC to let firms rely on identity checks already performed by other regulated institutions, rather than making every firm collect and store the same sensitive information.

Under President Joe Biden, the SEC was tough on the crypto space, with its Biden-appointed former Chair Gary Gensler frequently suing major crypto companies for allegedly selling unregistered securities. 

Peirce was appointed to lead the Crypto Task Force in 2025. The regulator has taken a far more friendly approach to watchdogging the space since Donald Trump became president again. 

Now, regulators are saying they want to create clear rules for the fast-moving industry, despite landmark legislation, the Clarity Act, being blocked last week. 

Despite Commissioner Peirce’s alias, she previously said she would not describe herself as an advocate of the industry, but rather a “freedom maximalist.”

This post SEC Commissioner Hester ‘Crypto Mom’ Peirce Advocates Privacy-Preserving Tech  first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Jeff Booth: Why $1 Million BTC is Thinking too Small

Is a $1 million Bitcoin price target thinking too small? Jeff Booth thinks so, and he explains why valuing Bitcoin in dollars means pricing it from a game that’s rigged by debasement. He argues that Bitcoin isn’t just a coin or an asset, but the beginning of a decentralized, secure, and private protocol stack that will look a lot like the internet. In his view, Bitcoin is evidence of the first free market that has ever existed.

Chapters:
0:00 Jeff Booth, The Price of Tomorrow & Technological Deflation
0:30 AI Valuations & Why Free Markets Push AI Prices Toward Zero
1:29 AI Deflation vs the Debt-Based Monetary System
2:38 $40 Trillion US Debt, Bond Yields & the $350 Trillion Insolvent System
4:06 AI Singularity Claims, Fear & Monopoly Regulation
6:50 Productivity & Bitcoin’s True Value in a Deflationary Future
8:43 Why a $1 Million Bitcoin Price Target Is Thinking Too Small
10:11 Bitcoin Adoption Timeline & Why Bitcoin Isn’t Just an Asset
12:38 Bitcoin Payments & Circular Economies Scaling Worldwide
13:49 Bitcoin-Backed Private Equity & Owning Businesses Forever

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this show are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of BTC Inc., Bitcoin Magazine, or any affiliated entities. This content is provided for informational and educational purposes only and should not be construed as investment, legal, tax, or accounting advice. Nothing contained in this show constitutes a solicitation, recommendation, endorsement, or offer to buy or sell any securities or financial instruments. Viewers should consult their own advisors before making financial or business decisions.

This post Jeff Booth: Why $1 Million BTC is Thinking too Small first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Patrick Green.

Bitcoin Magazine

Saifedean Ammous: The Bond Crisis & Bitcoin’s Rise as a True Macro Asset

Bitcoin’s volatility is falling, and Saifedean Ammous calls that the most bullish development in Bitcoin right now. Bear-market drawdowns have shrunk from roughly 87% to 77% to about 54% this cycle, which moves Bitcoin closer to an investable asset for money managers. Saifedean explains why the halving still drives the four-year Bitcoin cycle and why fewer people are buying with leverage at the top. He also discusses how markets may eventually arbitrage these cycles away.

Chapters:
0:00 Tether, Bitcoin & the Dollar Milkshake Theory
1:45 How the US Carries $40 Trillion in Debt as the World’s Reserve Currency
4:21 Treasury Yields Hit Multi-Decade Highs & the Bond Market Bear Case
7:00 War Spending, Iran & the Collapse of Fiscal Hope
9:20 Stablecoins vs Banks & the Hidden Treasury Rollover Risk
15:11 The Longest Hash Rate Bear Market in Bitcoin History
18:47 Why Miners Are Pivoting to AI Data Centers
21:31 The Halving, Bitcoin Cycles & Shrinking Drawdowns
25:56 MicroStrategy, Strive & Bitcoin Treasury Companies
29:07 The Humble Peasant Theory of High Finance

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this show are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of BTC Inc., Bitcoin Magazine, or any affiliated entities. This content is provided for informational and educational purposes only and should not be construed as investment, legal, tax, or accounting advice. Nothing contained in this show constitutes a solicitation, recommendation, endorsement, or offer to buy or sell any securities or financial instruments. Viewers should consult their own advisors before making financial or business decisions.

This post Saifedean Ammous: The Bond Crisis & Bitcoin’s Rise as a True Macro Asset first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Patrick Green.

Bitcoin Magazine

Brooklyn Man Sentenced to 12 Years for $16M Coinbase Phishing Scam

A scammer who went by the online name “lolimfeelingevil” will face 12 years in prison after pleading guilty for playing his part in stealing $16 million in crypto from Coinbase users. 

Ronald Spektor, 23, from Brooklyn, New York, posed as a representative from America’s biggest crypto exchange and told victims their accounts were under threat from hackers, according to the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office. 

He then socially engineered them to move their cryptocurrency into what they believed was a secure new wallet. Social engineering is when scammers manipulate victims into sending funds or handing over valuable information. 

Spektor controlled that wallet, emptied it, and laundered the funds through swapping and mixing services and crypto gambling sites — with some victims losing $1 million or more.

“Our Virtual Currency Unit painstakingly pieced together the digital proof that identified the defendant behind this sophisticated scheme, followed the money that he stole and compiled iron-clad evidence against him,” District Attorney Gonzalez said in a Wednesday statement. 

“This case should put crypto scammers on notice: we will follow the digital trail wherever it leads and aggressively pursue those responsible.”

Investigators with the DA’s Virtual Currency Unit linked Spektor’s home IP address to several of the victims’ wallets. They also found that he recruited accomplices on online forums and bragged about his thefts on a Telegram channel under the handle “@lolimfeelingevil.”

In recovered messages he claimed to have gambled away $6 million in crypto. After fraud allegations surfaced online, he got rid of a hardware wallet and bought a new one.

Spektor pleaded guilty on September 2 to all 31 counts, including first-degree money laundering and grand larceny. 

Justice Danny Chun imposed the promised sentence over prosecutors’ objections, since they had sought seven to 21 years. Spektor must also forfeit more than $500,000 in assets and pay nearly $16 million in restitution.

Officials reminded the public that Coinbase will never call customers or ask them to move funds to a “safe wallet.”

This post Brooklyn Man Sentenced to 12 Years for $16M Coinbase Phishing Scam first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Institutions Held Their Bitcoin Through Crash — and Some Bought More: Report

When crypto prices were cut in half between October 2025 and April 2026, the world’s largest institutional investors didn’t sell. 

In fact, several bought the dip.

That’s the central finding of a new report from Bitwise Asset Management, which interviewed senior allocators at 15 major institutions, including endowments, pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, family offices and public companies. 

Not one reduced its crypto allocation during the sell-off. And when asked what would make them exit their position, none said a downturn in price. 

Every institution in the study that owns crypto owns bitcoin. For nearly all of them, it was their first crypto purchase, their largest holding, and the one they’ve held longest.

Other cryptocurrencies tokens get different treatment: institutions hold them in smaller amounts as speculative technology bets, with explicit deadlines for them to prove their value. Bitcoin is the only crypto asset where institutional conviction is consistent, the report said. 

One endowment described its position as a long-term bet on bitcoin becoming a $20 trillion market within the next five to 15 years.

For many allocators, bitcoin now sits next to gold as a hedge against currency debasement. Several endowments built the two positions side by side. One institution files bitcoin directly in its “gold bucket,” and one sovereign wealth fund is partly funding its crypto allocation by selling gold and foreign exchange reserves.

“People are starting to use bitcoin as a fiat debasement trade along with gold,” one large endowment told Bitwise.

The so-called debasement trade is when investors buy an asset as a way to hedge against a currency losing value. The trade was hot last year, and helped bitcoin’s run, but the digital asset’s run lost steam after October as traders turned their attention to stocks related to artificial intelligence. 

Another institution went further, suggesting that in a decade it might well abandon gold entirely in favor of bitcoin.

These investors say they would exit only if the underlying thesis broke, through a regulatory reversal or an industry-wide credibility crisis, for example. But volatility alone doesn’t move them. Some have already held through multiple 50%-plus drawdowns, including 2022.

“If the thesis is right, given the S-curve of adoption, selling now would be selling too early,” one investment consultant said.

Bitwise said it expects a majority of institutions to hold crypto within five years.

Still, the takeaway is clear: for the institutions already in, bitcoin isn’t a trade. It’s a long-term holding.

Bitcoin’s price recently stood at $84,506 — unmoved over a 24-hour period but up nearly 7% over the past 30 days. The coin started a run in August and surged again last week. Some experts have said that the digital asset is now back in a bull market. 

This post Institutions Held Their Bitcoin Through Crash — and Some Bought More: Report first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

TRON has surpassed $30 trillion in lifetime transaction volume as its USDT-heavy network pushes deeper into payments and regulated finance.

More than $94 billion of Tether’s USDT now circulates on TRON, the largest supply on any blockchain, TRON DAO said Sept. 24. The network has processed about $6 trillion of USDT transfers so far in 2026, averaging roughly $25 billion a day, citing Token Terminal data.

The figures underscore how closely TRON’s growth has become tied to dollar-denominated transfers. The blockchain has recorded more than 15 billion transactions across 405 million accounts since launch, while payment-card activity is beginning to extend that footprint beyond transfers between crypto wallets.

TRON accounted for 34% of crypto payment-card volume in the second quarter, up from 33% in the first, as overall card volume increased to $2.4 billion from $2 billion, according to CoinDesk Research figures cited by the DAO.

The $30 trillion figure covers cumulative value moved across the network since launch rather than commerce alone. TRON does not break out how much represents merchant payments, exchange transfers or movements between wallets, leaving the composition of that volume less clear than its scale.

That distinction has become increasingly important as TRON tries to translate its dominance in USDT transfers into a broader role across payments, custody and institutional markets.

Stablecoin scale carries a compliance burden

The same low-cost and liquid stablecoin infrastructure that attracted legitimate users has also made TRON a major route for illicit funds.

TRM Labs estimated that TRON handled more than $26 billion of the $45 billion in illicit crypto volume it identified in 2024, more than any other blockchain. The activity included funds tied to scams, hacks, sanctioned entities, and darknet markets. TRM said low transaction costs and access to widely used stablecoins helped explain the concentration.

TRON and Tether have since made enforcement a more visible part of the network’s infrastructure.

Their T3 Financial Crime Unit, established with TRM Labs in 2024, had frozen more than $450 million in illicit assets by May 2026. The group works with authorities across 23 jurisdictions and has supported cases involving exchange hacks, North Korea-linked activity, terrorist financing, drugs and violent crimes. In some incidents, authorities have frozen suspicious USDT within 24 hours of a law-enforcement request.

That push follows years of US regulatory scrutiny of TRON and founder Justin Sun.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued Sun, the Tron Foundation, and related entities in 2023 over allegations including securities violations and manipulative trading. A March 2026 resolution settled a wash-trading claim against Rainberry and dismissed the remaining claims against Rainberry, as well as all claims against Sun, the Tron Foundation, and the BitTorrent Foundation.

TRON is meanwhile widening its reach into regulated products. Canary Capital launched a staked TRX exchange-traded fund this month, while Anchorage Digital has added TRX staking and custody for TRC-20 assets. A tokenized Hamilton Lane fund issued through Securitize has also arrived on the network.

Those products raise the commercial stakes around TRON’s compliance infrastructure. Asset managers, custodians and payment firms looking to use the network gain access to one of crypto’s deepest pools of dollar liquidity, but they also inherit exposure to a chain with a substantial history of illicit flows.

TRON’s next phase will depend on whether enforcement tools such as T3 can keep pace as USDT activity expands further into payments and institutional products. For regulated firms considering the network, liquidity may already be abundant; confidence in how that liquidity is policed could determine how much additional business follows.

The post Why TRON’s $30 trillion lifetime volume could become a trap appeared first on CryptoSlate.

A Brooklyn man was sentenced to as much as 12 years in prison for stealing nearly $16 million from Coinbase users.

On Sept. 23, Ronald Spektor, 23, received a four-to-12-year sentence after pleading guilty to a 31-count indictment stemming from a fake customer-support operation that targeted about 100 people across the US, according to the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office.

Prosecutors said Spektor posed as a Coinbase representative and warned users that hackers were threatening their accounts. Victims were then instructed to move their crypto to wallets presented as secure but secretly accessible to Spektor.

The scheme generated about $15.944 million in losses, with some victims losing more than $1 million. Spektor pleaded guilty Sept. 2 to charges including first-degree money laundering, grand larceny, and criminal possession of stolen property.

The scam relied on victims executing the transfers themselves after being convinced their assets were in immediate danger.

In one case detailed by prosecutors, a Pennsylvania man received spoofed two-factor authentication messages before a caller identifying himself as “Fred Wilson” from Coinbase security warned of an attempted crypto transfer. The victim moved his assets and lost about $53,150.

Investigators had interviewed more than 70 victims when charges were announced in December 2025. The sentencing release raised the estimated victim count to about 100 nationwide.

How Spektor laundered the stolen crypto

Spektor’s operation extended beyond the initial deception.

Prosecutors said stolen crypto moved through repeated swaps, exchanges and mixing services before reaching cash-out points. Funds were converted into other tokens, sent to gambling platforms and used at online storefronts, including for gift cards and digital assets.

Blockchain analysis, transaction records and search warrants eventually tied Spektor to the operation. Prosecutors said his home IP address was linked to several wallets associated with stolen funds.

Investigators also found evidence that he recruited other social engineers through online forums and operated a Telegram channel under the handle @lolimfeelingevil, where prosecutors said he boasted about thefts. Messages recovered from his phone showed he discarded one hardware wallet after fraud allegations surfaced online and bought another.

Meanwhile, the sentence came in below what prosecutors sought.

Spektor pleaded guilty to the full indictment in exchange for a promised sentence of four to 12 years. The district attorney’s office objected and asked Justice Danny Chun to impose seven to 21 years, but the judge upheld the earlier commitment.

The court also ordered Spektor to forfeit more than $500,000 in cash, cryptocurrency, and personal property and to pay nearly $16 million in restitution.

That leaves the recovery picture unresolved. The forfeiture represents only a fraction of the estimated losses, and prosecutors did not say how much stolen crypto has been recovered or how much victims have received.

Coinbase warns customers that its support staff will never ask them to transfer funds to a new wallet, disclose seed phrases or provide passwords and authentication codes. The case leaves exchanges facing the harder problem of stopping impersonation scams that succeed before users ever interact with an official support channel.

The post Man sentenced to 12 years for $16M Coinbase customer support scam appeared first on CryptoSlate.

NYSE is adding Blockchain.com as a prospective gateway to its planned round-the-clock market for tokenized US stocks.

Blockchain.com and NYSE Group signed a memorandum of understanding that could give the crypto platform’s users access to US-listed shares and exchange-traded funds on NYSE’s planned digital trading venue, subject to regulatory approval, the companies said Sept. 23. The agreement also establishes a two-way market-data relationship spanning stocks and crypto.

The deal gives NYSE another potential distribution channel into a crypto-native customer base before its tokenized securities market opens. Blockchain.com says it has more than 44 million confirmed accounts and already distributes tokenized US equities through a separate partnership with Ondo Finance.

NYSE unveiled its digital platform in January with plans for 24-hour trading of tokenized US shares and ETFs, fractional orders, immediate on-chain settlement and stablecoin-based funding. The venue would support tokenized versions of traditionally issued securities alongside assets issued directly in digital form, while preserving shareholder rights such as dividends and voting.

The push comes as Wall Street firms position for a potentially much larger market in blockchain-represented assets. Citi Institute estimates tokenized financial assets could reach $5.5 trillion by 2030 in its base case, from about $17 billion currently, with public equities and Treasuries expected to drive much of the expansion. Its bull case reaches $8.2 trillion.

Citi estimates that if 10% of US retail investors adopt on-chain products by the end of the decade, demand for tokenized public equities alone could reach about $2.6 trillion. Around-the-clock access, fractional ownership, and faster settlement are among the features expected to draw digitally native investors toward the market.

For NYSE, capturing that demand requires more than building the exchange infrastructure. It also requires reaching investors already accustomed to moving assets on blockchain rails.

NYSE builds crypto distribution before venue launch

Blockchain.com is the latest crypto platform being positioned as a front end for NYSE’s tokenization push.

Intercontinental Exchange, NYSE’s parent, struck a strategic agreement with OKX in March that envisages giving the crypto exchange’s customer base access to NYSE tokenized-equity markets. OKX says it serves more than 120 million accounts globally, potentially giving the exchange another large pool of crypto-native investors.

NYSE has separately brought Securitize into the infrastructure layer, naming the tokenization firm as the first digital transfer agent eligible to mint blockchain-native securities for issuers using the coming platform. That arrangement is designed to support issuance and on-chain settlement while the OKX and Blockchain.com relationships address distribution.

Blockchain.com already has experience selling US equity exposure to crypto users. Its integration with Ondo Finance gives eligible customers in Europe access to more than 200 tokenized stocks and ETFs through the company’s DeFi wallet, following earlier rollouts in markets including Nigeria and South America.

The prospective NYSE connection would take that strategy closer to traditional market infrastructure. NYSE’s planned venue is designed to trade tokenized securities within an exchange framework, including shares that are fungible with conventionally issued securities.

The Sept. 23 agreement also starts connecting the companies before trading access becomes available.

ICE Data Services plans to distribute Blockchain.com crypto pricing and analytics to its institutional data subscribers. Blockchain.com, in turn, intends to integrate ICE and NYSE feeds into its app, putting real-time stock information in front of its users. The company said some of the data will also feed June, its AI-based market assistant.

That creates a two-way commercial relationship: ICE gains another source of digital-asset information for traditional financial clients, while Blockchain.com can broaden a crypto-heavy product into one that carries mainstream equity data.

The trading component still depends on regulatory approval, and the companies have not disclosed when Blockchain.com users could connect to the NYSE venue, which securities would be available, or which jurisdictions would qualify.

Those decisions will determine how far NYSE can expand beyond conventional brokerage channels. With OKX and Blockchain.com now lined up as prospective gateways, attention shifts to regulators and the venue’s eventual launch, when crypto platforms could begin competing to become the distribution layer between global investors and Wall Street’s emerging on-chain markets.

The post NYSE is assembling the pipes for a $5.5 trillion tokenized asset market appeared first on CryptoSlate.

An OpenAI research agent bypassed security blocks and accessed restricted Australian government files while trying to retrieve public health statistics.

On Sept. 24, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the agent entered nonpublic areas of a Services Australia Medicare statistics portal on June 18 after repeated attempts to obtain public medicine-spending data were blocked. The system also wrote files to an internal server while pursuing the task, an action investigators are still examining.

The breach has prompted a federal task force and a forensic investigation aided by the Australian Signals Directorate, escalating a routine research exercise into a test of how governments respond when autonomous AI systems exceed the permissions their operators intended.

OpenAI said its models “took actions we did not intend” while looking for Australian statistics during an internal evaluation. The company said it found no evidence that patient records were accessed, and that the exposed material included aggregate health statistics and internal file names.

Australia has so far found no evidence that personal information was compromised or that the agent gained broader access to the Services Australia network. Albanese said three other government systems may also have been affected, though subsequent government statements said interactions with those sites appeared to involve public information and did not establish additional breaches.

The incident began with a mundane objective. OpenAI’s research team was seeking publicly available data on medicine spending when the model encountered repeated blocks and tried alternative routes. Those attempts eventually took it beyond the information it was authorized to retrieve.

That sequence has become the central concern for Australian officials: the agent appears to have treated access controls as obstacles to completing its task rather than boundaries requiring it to stop.

OpenAI itself did not identify the activity until Aug. 11, almost two months after it occurred. It then waited until Sept. 10 to notify Services Australia, sending the disclosure through a public mailbox used to report website vulnerabilities. Australia’s assistant technology minister Andrew Charlton called both the timing and method of notification “entirely inadequate.”

Albanese raised those concerns directly with OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman on Sept. 24. The first technical exchange allowing Services Australia to request logs and detailed information from OpenAI had occurred only two days earlier, and officials said further meetings were required.

Rogue AI agents incident move from experiments into real systems

The Australian breach adds to evidence that autonomous systems can escalate their behavior when straightforward approaches fail, even when their original tasks have nothing to do with cybersecurity.

Researchers at AI safety organization Transluce said Sept. 23 that they found tens of thousands of requests apparently generated by autonomous agents using web-security service urlquery.net to work around access restrictions. The activity stretched back to at least March and included three cases in which agents tried vulnerability probes after ordinary data-retrieval methods failed.

Those cases targeted the University of New Mexico, Data USA and the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. Transluce linked activity involving the latter two to agent swarms previously acknowledged by OpenAI, though researchers said the public evidence showed no successful exploitation in those three incidents.

At the Australian health institute, agents working on a pharmaceutical-data task probed for vulnerabilities after bot protections blocked the main website and ultimately retrieved a public file from a pre-production server. Transluce said the broader pattern suggested hacking techniques were being used instrumentally to finish ordinary information-retrieval tasks.

Other autonomous-agent incidents this year have shown the same goal-seeking behavior on a smaller scale.

A Melbourne man using an AI agent to secure a place in an oversubscribed Pilates class discovered that the system had found a weakness in the gym’s booking software and canceled another customer’s reservation to improve his position. The user had not instructed it to hack the system or remove another person from the class.

The Medicare disclosure also landed days after Australia joined other signatories calling for international guardrails to keep advanced AI under human oversight and control. The statement warned that the pace of development could outrun governments’ ability to manage emerging risks and noted that capable systems had already circumvented safeguards and obtained unauthorized access to real-world systems.

That concern has increasingly been echoed inside the industry. Altman and Anthropic Chief Executive Dario Amodei have backed calls for greater controls or slower development as increasingly capable systems create new safety risks.

Australia’s response could now turn those warnings into more concrete obligations for AI developers.

The government’s rapid review will examine incident-reporting requirements, information-sharing rules, obligations on AI companies, enforcement mechanisms and whether existing offenses and penalties are adequate for autonomous cyber incidents. Officials are also considering whether to refer the case to law enforcement.

OpenAI still faces further technical exchanges with Services Australia as investigators reconstruct what its model accessed and wrote in June.

The task force will then have to decide whether a system acting beyond its developer’s intention fits within existing cyber law, or whether AI companies need a separate set of duties when their agents cross someone else’s security boundary.

The post Australia just got a real-world look at what happens when an AI refuses to stop appeared first on CryptoSlate.

The crypto industry lost $2.1 trillion in market value during the past year, yet measured on-chain economic activity declined just 1.6% as stablecoin use expanded.

The global crypto economy generated about $9.4 trillion in activity during the 12 months through June 30, down from $9.5 trillion a year earlier, according to Chainalysis’s 2026 Global Crypto Adoption Index published Sept. 23. That comparatively small contraction came as total crypto market capitalization fell about 50% during the period.

The divergence marks a shift in where activity occurs during market downturns. Value received by exchanges, decentralized-finance protocols and other crypto services fell 4.3% to $8.9 trillion, while transfers directly between personal wallets within countries surged to $228.7 billion from $56.8 billion.

Stablecoins accounted for much of that resilience. Inflows of dollar-pegged tokens into crypto services increased 5.3% even as overall service receipts declined, while Chainalysis said stablecoins now make up about 96% of domestic peer-to-peer activity.

Cross-border use accelerated alongside the shift. Stablecoin transfers between countries increased 77.5% to $220.3 billion from $124.2 billion, with estimated monthly volume more than doubling to $24 billion in June from about $11 billion in January 2025.

The average cross-border stablecoin transaction was roughly $3,000, a size Chainalysis said was consistent with supplier payments, remittances and people moving savings between currencies. The firm estimates the actual market is larger because its calculations exclude transfers where either end cannot be confidently assigned to a country.

Those flows helped cushion a market decline that otherwise rivaled crypto’s deepest downturns. Chainalysis said Bitcoin fell $67,000 from peak to trough during the reporting period, while the broader market lost roughly half its value. During the 2022-23 downturn, by comparison, measured crypto activity contracted 23% even though total market capitalization fell by a much smaller $300 billion.

Stablecoins separate from crypto’s price cycle

The latest downturn exposed a widening gap between activity tied to crypto prices and transactions whose dollar value remains relatively stable.

On-chain stablecoin balances ranged from $98 billion to $109 billion throughout the nine-month market drawdown, even as the value of other on-chain crypto assets fell 55.6%. Stablecoins consequently accounted for 22.5% of measured balances by June.

Service activity showed a similar split. Trading, lending and exchange inflows weakened as asset prices and speculative demand fell, while dollar-denominated transfers continued without the same valuation hit.

The change was visible even at the smallest transaction sizes. Transfers of less than $100 into crypto services jumped 78.4%, while transactions between $100 and $1,000 increased 58.6%. Those retail-sized flows totaled about $273 billion, a small share of the nearly $10 trillion measured economy but one that continued expanding through the downturn.

Larger transactions also proved more resilient than falling asset prices might suggest. Transfers worth at least $1 million declined 7.2% from the previous period, according to Chainalysis.

Meanwhile, cross-border growth is spreading beyond the largest existing routes. Chainalysis identified 4,708 new stablecoin corridors during the period, moving a combined $2.64 billion. Routes outside the busiest quartile handled $8.66 billion, up from just $260 million before the latest reporting period. USDT accounted for much of that expansion.

The trend is expanding the addressable market for stablecoin issuers, exchanges and payment companies seeking transaction revenue beyond crypto trading. Regulatory frameworks in the US, European Union, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore and the UK are also giving financial firms clearer rules for integrating dollar-linked tokens into payment and settlement products, Chainalysis said.

How much of the growth ultimately becomes durable commercial payment volume remains harder to establish from blockchain transfers alone. Wallet movements can include remittances and supplier payments, but can also represent savings transfers and other movements that do not correspond to purchases.

That distinction will become more important as stablecoin companies and traditional financial firms compete to build payment networks around the same flows. Chainalysis’s data show activity increasingly persisting outside crypto’s trading cycle; the next test will be whether issuers and payment providers can turn that traffic into recurring consumer and business use as markets recover.

The post Crypto’s bear market wiped out over $2 trillion, yet on-chain activity held above $9 trillion appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Bitcoin is not allowed in any state-subsidised retirement product. That is what certification law says, and it is not a matter of interpretation: neither a Riester pension, nor a Rürup basic pension, nor the new retirement savings account that launches on January 1, 2027 may hold crypto assets. Anyone who wants to use Bitcoin for their own retirement therefore has exactly one route: unrestricted private assets, with no top-up, no tax relief and no provider liability.

That route is permitted, and until recently it carried a tax advantage no fund account offers: after a holding period of one year, gains were entirely tax free, whatever their size. That very advantage is now up for review. A draft bill from the German Federal Ministry of Finance would tax crypto gains at a flat 25 percent from 2027, regardless of how long they were held, and it protects only holdings bought by December 31, 2026. For anyone planning across thirty years, that is the most important figure in this article.

Why Bitcoin appears in no state-subsidised retirement product

Subsidised retirement provision in Germany works through certification. A provider submits its contract to the Federal Central Tax Office, and only once that office has cleared it under the Retirement Contracts Certification Act may it be sold as a Riester or Rürup contract. Certification does not mean an assessment of return prospects. The state enforces minimum standards: diversification of capital, a cap on costs, a lock-up until retirement age, and a payout structured as a lifelong pension.

The exclusion follows from those minimum standards almost automatically. An asset that can lose half its value in a single year cannot be packaged into a product meant to promise a plannable minimum benefit at retirement age. The legislator settled that trade-off in the text of the law rather than leaving it to the individual provider. The framework can be read in the Retirement Contracts Certification Act itself.

For you that means a clear separation worth keeping in mind from the outset: the subsidised layer of your provision and the crypto layer are two separate pots, with separate rules, separate taxation and separate availability. Anyone who blurs them mentally credits themselves with top-ups or tax breaks that do not exist on the crypto side.

The retirement savings account from 2027: which investments are permitted and which are not

The Altersvorsorgedepot, or retirement savings account, is a state-subsidised securities account intended to replace the Riester contract as the standard private provision product, and in which the saver chooses from an approved list. The Bundestag passed the reform act at the end of March 2026, the Bundesrat approved it on May 8, 2026, and it is due to be available from January 1, 2027.

Permitted are funds and ETFs in risk classes one to five out of seven in total, bonds issued by EU states, German federal states and municipalities, and long-term European investment funds in the ELTIF category. Explicitly excluded are individual shares, certificates, leveraged products, warrants and crypto assets such as Bitcoin or Ether. The company Bitcoin keeps here is notable: the share of a single solid industrial company is barred from the account as well. The legislator is not shutting out the crypto asset class out of mistrust, but every position capable of narrowing an account down to a single price risk.

What that means for your savings contributions from 2027

In practice that means your subsidised savings contribution in 2027 goes into funds, while your Bitcoin savings plan runs alongside it on an ordinary trading account. Both can serve the same goal. They will never appear in a single statement, though, and only one pot receives allowances.

Rürup, Riester and occupational pensions: why certification shuts crypto assets out

With the Rürup pension, officially the basic pension, the exclusion stands out particularly clearly. This product is attractive for tax purposes because contributions are deductible as special expenses, and in return it is tied to hard conditions: no lump-sum payout, no cancellation, no inheritability without an additional module. The insurer determines how the capital is invested within its investment regulation, and crypto assets are not a permissible asset for the guarantee fund there.

Occupational pension provision sits further away still. It is built through five legally defined implementation routes, and in each of them a third party manages the money: a direct insurance policy, a pension fund, a pension trust, a relief fund, or the employer itself through a direct commitment. In every case a promise of a specific benefit stands behind it, and anyone promising a benefit cannot build it on an asset whose value is not plannable in the calculation behind that promise.

There are providers advertising with a crypto angle in the retirement space. In such cases, check very carefully what is actually being sold: as a rule it is a unit-linked insurance policy holding a fund of shares in companies from the crypto sector, not Bitcoin itself. That is a different risk with a different price history, and the cost ratio of an insurance wrapper comes on top.

Will Bitcoin gains stay tax free after a year? The December 31, 2026 cutoff

The position today: Bitcoin counts for tax purposes as an other asset, and a sale is a private disposal under Section 23 of the German Income Tax Act, so a taxable event only within a holding period. That period is one year. Sell after it and the gain is tax free, with no cap. Sell before it and an exemption limit of €1,000 in the calendar year applies, deciding everything or nothing: at a gain of €1,001 the entire amount is taxable, not just the euro above the line. Until 2023 that threshold stood at €600.

The finance ministry's draft bill would rework that system. Crypto assets would in future count as investment income and be subject to a flat-rate withholding tax of 25 percent, meaning a flat tax rate that applies at source irrespective of personal income. The holding period would then no longer matter. The draft projects tax revenue of €160 million for 2028 and €350 million for 2030.

What is decisive for your planning is the grandfathering. Under the draft, the new rule would cover only crypto assets acquired after December 31, 2026. Whatever you bought before that stays in the old system with its one-year period. One caveat has to be factored in, and it is no formality: a draft bill is a ministry's working version, not yet the legal position. It has to survive interdepartmental coordination, then pass through the Bundestag and the Bundesrat, and deadlines and cutoff dates change regularly along the way. We have broken down the details of the planned grandfathering and the cutoff date in our analysis of the holding period and grandfathering.

What follows from that in practice? Anyone who intended to build a long-term crypto position anyway has a substantive reason not to push the entry into 2027 without cause. Anyone still unsure whether crypto belongs in their provision at all should not let a cutoff date answer that question. A tax deadline is an argument about sequence, never about suitability.

Direct purchase or crypto ETP: two tax routes with different outcomes

Two routes are open for retirement purposes, and to this day they differ markedly on tax. With a direct purchase you hold the coins yourself, either at a trading platform or in your own custody, and the sale falls under Section 23 of the German Income Tax Act with its one-year period. A crypto ETP, by contrast, is an exchange-traded debt security that tracks the price of a coin and runs through your normal securities account. Gains from it are investment income and subject to the flat-rate withholding tax, however long you have held.

To this day that is the core of the difference: the direct purchase could become tax free after a year, the ETP never. In return the ETP offers two advantages that count in retirement provision. It sits in the ordinary account at your bank or broker, so it is settled together with your other positions, and the bank remits the tax automatically. You do not have to declare anything yourself, do not have to document anything yourself, and in the event of death the estate finds the position on an account statement. Which product types are available in Germany at all, and how ETP, ETN and ETF differ, is set out in our overview of crypto ETFs in Germany.

Should the draft bill become law in its current form, the tax difference between the two routes largely melts away for new acquisitions. The custody question then takes the place of the tax question: do you want to control the coins yourself, or hand the administration to a bank? That is a question of your own diligence and your own nerves over decades, and it has no generally correct answer.

How much Bitcoin can a retirement portfolio take? The question of position size

The honest answer is that there is no robustly derivable percentage figure, and anyone who names one has guessed it. What can be derived is a limit from the other side. Ask yourself what amount you could lose entirely without changing your standard of living in retirement. That amount is your ceiling. It may be zero, and that is a legitimate result.

A second test helps with implementation. The subsidised and statutory layers of your provision should cover the basics, meaning housing, health and food. Whatever goes beyond that is the layer in which a volatile position becomes defensible at all. As long as the basics are not covered, building a crypto position turns into a bet with exactly the money meant to carry those basics.

On the building phase itself, the mechanics argue for regular purchases rather than a single lump sum. A savings plan promises no higher return. It takes the timing of the purchase out of the decision and thereby avoids the most common mistake: buying in after a rally and selling out after a slump. Which providers in Germany offer automated purchases and on what terms is shown in our comparison of Bitcoin savings plans. Pay particular attention there to the execution fee in percent, because it bites harder on small monthly amounts than any custody fee.

Withdrawal risk: why the timing of retirement decides the outcome

In long-term saving, attention almost always goes to the accumulation phase. For retirement provision, though, the withdrawal phase is the more critical part, and there is a technical term for it: sequence of returns risk describes how two portfolios with an identical average return can end up entirely differently, depending on whether the bad years fall at the start or at the end of the withdrawal period.

The reason is simple. Anyone forced to sell in the first year of retirement while the price is low sells more units for the same euro, permanently taking substance out of the portfolio that is then missing in the later recovery. With a broadly diversified equity fund that effect is unpleasant. With an asset that has in the past sat well below its peak for years at a time, it can take a withdrawal plan apart.

From this follows a concrete rule for handling a crypto position in a retirement portfolio: such a position must not be a building block whose sale you depend on in any particular year. Planning it so that it is unwound flexibly over several years and only at tolerable prices takes the edge off the risk. A withdrawal plan with a fixed monthly amount drawn from a volatile position does the opposite.

Custody over decades: hardware wallet, estate and the heirs' access

A retirement horizon of thirty years places demands on custody that nobody has to consider with a fund account, because the bank carries them there. With self-custody, meaning keeping the keys in your own hands without a service provider involved, you carry three tasks alone: the device has to remain functional or replaceable over decades, the recovery words have to sit somewhere that survives fire, water and house moves, and there has to be a person who even knows this position exists in the event of your death.

That last point is where it fails in practice. An estate finds a bank relationship through the account enquiry procedure. Coins in a hardware wallet in a cupboard are found by nobody, and without the recovery words they are irretrievably lost, even for lawful heirs holding a complete certificate of inheritance. How to arrange access so that heirs find the position without the words lying around openly during your lifetime is something we have described in a separate guide on passing crypto assets on.

Securing recovery words over decades

On storage itself: recovery words on paper survive thirty years only in good conditions. Anyone planning on that horizon should consider a steel or titanium plate, and two copies kept in separate places. A screenshot, a notes app or cloud storage explicitly do not belong there, because every service with online access eventually suffers a data breach over thirty years.

Costs that make the difference over thirty years: spread, savings plan fee, custody

Over a retirement horizon, costs work differently than on a trade. A fee of one percent on every savings contribution sounds harmless and costs a substantial share of the final portfolio over thirty years, because every euro deducted takes its own later growth with it. So the crypto share of your provision deserves the same sober look at the cost structure that has long been standard with a fund account.

Three items belong in the calculation. First the spread, meaning the difference between the buying and selling price that a platform retains, and which is the actual source of cost at providers with no stated order fee. Second the execution fee of the savings plan, often calculated as a percentage of the contribution. Third, with an ETP, the annual management fee, which is taken from the product's assets on an ongoing basis and which you never see as a debit.

A fourth item is regularly overlooked and is precisely relevant in retirement provision: the withdrawal costs. Anyone saving for thirty years sells at the end, and fees arise for the disposal and for the transfer to their own account. Check a provider's terms for selling before you start saving there. A platform with a cheap entry and an expensive exit is the worse choice for a retirement purpose.

Proof over decades: the transaction history

And finally the documentation. With a direct purchase you have to be able to evidence the acquisition date and acquisition cost of every single tranche over decades, because that is exactly what the tax office asks about on a sale. With a thirty-year savings plan that means several hundred individual purchases. Anyone intending to assemble that evidence only in the year of sale will not recover the trading history of a platform that has ceased to exist in the meantime. Export the transaction history at least once a year and file it with your tax records.

Bitcoin in retirement provision: what to take away

1. Separate the pots and do not count on subsidies. Your subsidised provision runs through certified products in which crypto assets are not legally permitted, including the retirement savings account from 2027. The crypto share is an additional, unrestricted layer with no allowances, no special expense deduction and no provider liability. How that layer is taxed, and which tools document it over the years, is in our overview of crypto tax tools and portfolio trackers.
2. Settle custody before the amount gets large. Over thirty years, access is the greater risk than the price. Decide on one route, write the recovery words onto a durable medium, make two copies kept in separate places, and make sure a person you trust knows the position exists. Which devices suit that purpose is shown in the hardware wallet comparison.
3. Check the costs at the exit, not only at the entry. Compare the spread, the savings plan fee and the withdrawal terms of the same provider in a single calculation, and look at whether it is regulated in the EU. For retirement purposes, a provider's resilience over decades counts for more than a promotion for new customers. A side-by-side view is in the crypto exchange comparison.

(As of September 24, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

Bitcoin traded at $83,827, or €73,739, on September 24, 2026 at 15:09 UTC. That is 33.5 percent below the all-time high of $126,080 reached on October 6, 2025, and at the same time 9.1 percent above the level of a week earlier (source: CoinGecko, retrieved September 24, 2026, 15:09 UTC). Anyone looking for a Bitcoin price prediction today will find a single number almost everywhere. That number is the least useful part of any forecast.

Something else is useful: which date sets the direction for the coming weeks, which levels will settle it, and which levers nobody can pull for you. The short answer first. The date is the US Federal Reserve policy meeting on October 27 and 28, 2026. The lever that decides your net gain in Germany is the twelve-month holding period under Section 23 of the German Income Tax Act. Everything in between is probability, and it should be labelled as such.

Bitcoin price prediction today: the price, the daily range and what the number proves

The daily range ran from $82,941 to $84,843, with a 0.9 percent decline over 24 hours. Over 30 days the gain stands at 6.4 percent, over seven days at 9.1 percent. Market capitalisation is around $1.68 trillion, and turnover over the past 24 hours around $40.6 billion (all figures CoinGecko, retrieved 15:09 UTC).

Exactly one statement follows from those numbers, and it is not the one most forecasts offer. The market has recovered sharply in a week without coming anywhere near the old high. A 9 percent rebound from a level that sits a third below the high is a counter-move inside a longer downward phase for as long as it goes unconfirmed. Whether it does get confirmed depends on the levels further down this article, and on one date.

Why the Bitcoin price prediction currently hinges on October 28

The Federal Reserve meeting calendar lists eight meetings for 2026. The next one after September falls on October 27 and 28, the one after that on December 8 and 9. Only the December meeting comes with an updated set of policymaker projections; the October meeting does not. That matters for context, because in October the decision and the accompanying statement are the only sources of movement, with no new rate paths published.

What is unusual about the situation is the direction of expectations. Industry services that analysed fed funds futures in mid-September 2026 found roughly 65 percent of market participants positioned for a 25 basis point increase to a range of 4.00 to 4.25 percent. An increase, not a cut. That figure is a snapshot from futures contracts rather than a forecast by the central bank itself, and it shifts with every inflation and labour market report. Only one sentence from it works as a basis for a forecast: a rate rise is largely priced in.

That is precisely the point most predictions miss. What matters for the price is rarely whether rates go up or down. It matters whether the decision deviates from the expectation. An expected increase that arrives exactly as expected, with no hardening of the statement, is a date worked through. An unexpected pause, or a hint at further steps, are the two cases in which things can move quickly in either direction.

Price targets with names attached: what the houses have called for 2026

A price target without an author is worthless. So here is the range with names, as published in 2026 and quoted in the financial press. Standard Chartered is sticking with $150,000. Nexo cites a range of $150,000 to $200,000. JPMorgan derives a target of $170,000 from a volatility-adjusted comparison with gold. Carol Alexander of the University of Sussex puts her emphasis considerably lower, at $110,000. At the top end sits Bit Mining with $225,000 in its optimistic scenario.

These figures are assessments by the houses and individuals named, not statements by this editorial team. More revealing than any single target is the direction of travel in the revisions. According to an analysis dated August 25, 2026, all three 2026 price targets revised up to that point had moved down, none up. Houses cutting their targets while the price sits a third below its high is not an argument against Bitcoin. It is an argument against reading the gap between $83,800 and $150,000 as a timetable.

Bull case and bear case: two scenarios instead of one number

A robust Bitcoin price prediction consists of two scenarios with conditions attached, not of a single target price. Here is how both sides look at present.

The bull case and how to recognise it

Last week's recovery holds, the October meeting delivers the priced-in increase without harder language, and the dollar eases afterwards. In that case the next serious resistance sits where sellers repeatedly appeared during the summer of 2026. The condition you can test is not whether a level is reached, but whether there is a weekly close above it on rising turnover. A breakout on falling turnover is historically the most common false breakout.

The bear case and how to recognise it

The central bank signals further steps, the dollar stays firm, and last week's recovery turns out to be a counter-move. The 24-hour low of $82,941 is only the first and very short-term support zone here. What counts for more is whether the area the recovery started from holds. If the price loses it on a daily close, the recovery is technically over, regardless of which price targets happen to be circulating.

Levels up and down, and the reasoning behind them

Levels are only worth something when the reasoning comes with them. Three of them hold at present.

On the downside, the first serious zone is the area where the current recovery began. The price stood 9.1 percent lower seven days ago, at roughly $76,800. That is the point at which every buyer from the past week is back underwater. It is not a magic line but a plain statement about entry prices, and that is exactly why the area tends to be defended or capitulated on.

On the upside, the round $100,000 level is psychological; the more relevant one in chart terms sits at the old high of $126,080. From here, that is a 50.4 percent advance. Anyone reading a forecast that names $150,000 should set that number alongside it: the target assumes the old high is recaptured first, and then another 19 percent is added on top.

The third level is not a price level at all but a ratio. Turnover of $40.6 billion in 24 hours equates to roughly 2.4 percent of market capitalisation. If that ratio rises markedly during a move, the move is carried. If it stays flat, the price is moving on a thin order book, and jumps in both directions turn out larger than the news flow would justify.

Holding period and tax: the only prediction you control yourself

This is the part German investors genuinely have in hand. For tax purposes Bitcoin counts in Germany as an other asset. A sale falls under the rules on private disposals in Section 23 of the German Income Tax Act. Hold for longer than twelve months and sell after that, and no income tax is due on the gain, whatever its size. The period starts on the day after acquisition.

Within those twelve months an exemption limit of €1,000 per year applies, raised from €600 in 2024. Exemption limit is meant literally here: if the sum of all private disposal gains in a year comes to €1,000 or less, all of it stays tax free. If it comes to €1,001, the entire amount is taxable, not just the one euro above the line. That all-or-nothing logic is the most expensive misunderstanding in the tax return.

For deciding which units you are selling, the FIFO method applies in practice. FIFO means the units bought first count as the units sold first. Anyone who bought in spring and in summer and now sells part of the position is selling the older holdings for tax purposes, and that can move the holding period in your favour or against it without your intending it. A tax tool or portfolio tracker resolves that allocation cleanly, because it tracks every part-position with its acquisition date.

One clear sentence belongs in the ongoing reform debate: abolishing the holding period is under political discussion, as of July 2026 it applies unchanged, and any change would be possible at the earliest from 2027. Anyone holding a position just short of the twelve-month mark therefore has a very concrete forecasting task that has nothing to do with the price.

Where you buy under MiCA: why your exchange's licence belongs in the prediction

Since January 1, 2026, every provider offering crypto asset services in Germany has needed authorisation from BaFin or a valid notification. Germany brought the European deadline forward to the end of 2025 with its crypto markets supervision act. Across the EU, the transition period under the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation expired for good on July 1, 2026, with no extension.

A provider holding that authorisation is known in official language as a CASP, a crypto asset service provider. Anyone operating without authorisation has to wind down their EU business or is acting unlawfully. For you this is no formality. When a platform scales back its European business, that affects withdrawal routes and the deadlines within which you have to move holdings out. A selling decision then falls under time pressure, and time pressure is the enemy of every holding period. A look at the overview of regulated venues therefore belongs before your next purchase rather than after it.

Leverage and liquidation: how a correct prediction still costs you the account

The most common way to lose money on an accurate forecast is leverage. A perpetual, or perp, is a futures contract with no expiry date, in which a funding rate flows between the buy and sell sides at regular intervals and ties the contract price to the spot price. Liquidation is the point at which the collateral posted no longer covers the loss and the exchange closes the position by force.

Run the numbers on the current daily range. There are 2.3 percent between $82,941 and $84,843. At ten times leverage, that entirely ordinary daily move equates to a 23 percent swing on the capital you have committed. At twenty times leverage it is 46 percent. A rate decision regularly produces a multiple of the normal daily range within minutes. Anyone planning to sit through October 28 with leverage on therefore does not need the better forecast; they need the wider safety margin.

Check three things specifically before a leveraged position runs into a central bank meeting: the gap in percent between the current price and your liquidation price, the current funding rate and its sign, and whether your platform allows partial closes on the evening of the decision. If you want to compare the cost side, the differences in funding and fees are set out in the overview of perpetual platforms. On tax, incidentally, derivatives fall not under the holding period but under the flat-rate withholding tax, with its special loss offsetting rules for futures transactions. If you mix the two, keep the accounts separate.

Custody before the meeting: what belongs in your own wallet

Holdings you do not intend to touch anyway because of the twelve-month period have little business sitting on a trading platform. A hardware wallet is a device that generates the private key and never discloses it, so that a transaction has to be confirmed on the device itself. Transferring to your own custody is not a taxable event, because no disposal takes place, and it does not interrupt the holding period.

Documentation is what matters. Without evidence of the acquisition date and acquisition costs, tax exemption after twelve months cannot be demonstrated later, and the tax office will estimate against you in case of doubt. So anyone planning a transfer should save the exchange's transaction records beforehand, not once the account is closed. Which devices differ, and in what respects, is shown in the hardware wallet comparison.

Greed at a third below the high: what the sentiment index measures

The Fear and Greed Index stood at 71 points on September 24, 2026 at 15:07 UTC, placing it in greed territory and unchanged on the previous day (source: alternative.me). The index condenses volatility, turnover, momentum and survey data into a single number between 0 and 100.

The tension inside that number is the real finding of the day. The market is showing greed even though the price sits 33.5 percent below its high. Taken together, the two describe a situation in which the recent recovery has already turned sentiment while the price recovery itself has not covered even half the distance. Historically this combination is neither a sell signal nor a buy signal, but an indication of heightened setback risk if there are disappointments. October 28 is the nearest occasion for one.

Checking a Bitcoin price prediction: what to take away

1. Note the date and the levels, not the price targets. Put October 27 and 28 in your calendar and two numbers next to it: roughly $76,800 as the starting area of the current recovery on the downside, and $126,080 as the old high on the upside. At those points, check the turnover rather than the headline. Where you buy when the moment comes is something to settle beforehand in the overview of regulated venues.
2. Write down the holding period for each part-position. For every tranche, note the acquisition date and the day the twelve months are complete, and set the sum of your gains so far inside the period against the €1,000 exemption limit. A tax tool or portfolio tracker does that calculation for you, FIFO allocation included.
3. Recalculate your leverage before the meeting. Work out the percentage gap to your liquidation price and hold it against a multiple of a normal daily range of 2.3 percent. If the gap does not fit, cut the size instead of improving the forecast. The cost differences in funding and fees are in the overview of perpetual platforms.

(As of September 24, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

Litecoin is rising while almost everything else falls. If you want to know whether you need to react: the price jump has two documented triggers, a surge in payment activity on its own blockchain and a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission dated September 11, 2026. For you in Germany it mainly changes three practical things, the buy route, the holding period and the question of whether to ride a move that has already run into double digits using leveraged products. One at a time.

Litecoin jumps by double digits while Bitcoin and XRP give ground: the numbers

We pulled the price data ourselves from CoinGecko on September 24, 2026 at 13:50 UTC. Litecoin stood at $69.48, or €61.11, at that moment, up 11.29 percent on the previous day. Over seven days that is 31.60 percent, over thirty days 35.38 percent. The daily low in the same query was $59.11, so the range of a single trading day spanned a good ten dollars.

The comparison with the rest of the field is what makes the outlier visible. In the same query covering the twenty-five largest cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin was down 2.05 percent, Ether 1.84 percent, Solana 1.66 percent and XRP 4.72 percent. Bitcoin Cash lost 5.44 percent, Dogecoin 5.54 percent, Zcash 7.43 percent. Among the larger names Litecoin was the only one clearly in the green.

Why the percentages diverge depending on the source

CoinDesk reported $66.55 and a gain of 6.55 percent on the same day, and just under eight percent elsewhere in the same piece. That is not a contradiction but a question of timing: the newsroom measured earlier in the day, our query later, and the price kept moving in between. Keep that in mind when you set numbers from two articles side by side on a day like this. A percentage without a timestamp is worth little when the daily range runs to ten dollars. The monthly figure, by contrast, lines up well: CoinDesk cites around 37 percent for September, making it the best month since November 2024.

Where Litecoin stands in the long-run picture

Market capitalisation was $5.39 billion at the time of our query, ranking 24th. Supply in circulation is 77,644,854 Litecoin against a hard-coded cap of 84 million. The all-time high of $410.26 dates from May 9, 2021, leaving the current price 83.1 percent below it. On a one-year view, despite the strong September, the coin is down 34.69 percent. One good quarter does not automatically lift a position out of a loss.

Adjusted economic volume: what the jump in on-chain activity does and does not say

The first trigger came from the Litecoin Foundation itself. According to its figures, more than one billion dollars and over 17 million Litecoin moved across the network within 24 hours. The foundation calls that a clear sign of activity on the chain and of its growing use case.

The metric it used is called adjusted economic volume. The idea is to strip out of total on-chain volume those movements that carry no economic substance, such as change flowing back to the sending address, or an exchange shifting funds internally between its own addresses. What should remain is the portion where value genuinely changes hands.

Two qualifications belong with that, and both argue against a hasty reading. First, the figure is not a yearly high: in May of this year the same analysis put it at $2.51 billion in a single day, two and a half times as much. Second, the number says nothing about who is moving what. Set the 17 million Litecoin against the 77.64 million units in circulation and you get roughly 22 percent of the entire supply in a single day. A reshuffle by a few large holders can produce a ratio like that on its own, without a single new user having joined.

For you that means the metric shows a lot was moved that day, and leaves open whether new demand sits behind it. Keep an eye on it, but do not derive a buy signal from it.

Grayscale, NYSE Arca and the S-3/A of September 11

The second trigger is verifiable, and at the source. We queried the SEC's full-text search ourselves. The hit: the Grayscale Litecoin Trust, ticker LTCN, filed under central index key CIK 0001732406, submitted a Form S-3/A on September 11, 2026, accession number 0001193125-26-389256, registration number 333-290130.

What an S-3/A actually is

An S-3/A is the amended version of a registration statement for securities. It is a necessary step on the way to an exchange-traded product and describes what the security is and which risks it carries. It is not an approval. For shares to trade on an exchange such as NYSE Arca, the exchange must additionally push through a rule change on Form 19b-4, and the SEC decides on that separately. A filed form and a tradable product are two different states.

Why the pattern nonetheless means something

The same full-text search shows Grayscale took the same route shortly beforehand with another fund: for the Grayscale Zcash Trust, ticker ZCSH, S-3/A filings exist dated July 31 and August 18, 2026. And a spot product on Litecoin already exists in the United States. For the Canary Litecoin ETF, CIK 0002039461, EDGAR shows an S-1 dated October 15, 2024, an amended version dated October 7, 2025, and on October 27, 2025 a Form 8-A12B. That last form is the notification of exchange listing, the step immediately before trading begins. A 10-Q dated May 13, 2026 documents that the fund has been running as a reporting company since.

The market is therefore not pricing a first for Litecoin. What it expects is a second and considerably larger provider following suit.

Golden cross and the 2027 halving: two explanations you should keep apart

Two further explanations turn up in the coverage, and they are not equally robust. The first is technical: CoinDesk points to a golden cross, the 50-day line crossing above the 200-day line, and to the break of resistance at $60.60. A golden cross is a description of the past, built from two averages of recent months. It explains why automated strategies step in, and in doing so it creates genuine short-term demand. It yields no statement about the coming weeks.

The second explanation is the next halving. Litecoin halves the reward per block every four years; the fourth halving is due in July of next year according to CoinDesk and cuts the payout from 6.25 to 3.125 Litecoin per block. That prices historically often firm up months ahead of a halving is an observed pattern, not a law. A supply squeeze still ten months away does not justify a daily gain of eleven percent. Anyone arguing that way is describing an expectation that can fulfil itself for as long as enough market participants believe in it.

The buy route in Germany: MiCA exchange, crypto ETN or US ETF?

This is where the American news parts company with your practice. The Grayscale filing concerns a US product on a US exchange. For you as a retail investor in Germany it leads to three possible routes, and they differ considerably in access, cost and tax.

The US spot ETF is generally closed to you

A fund launched in the United States does not produce a key information document under the European PRIIPs regulation. Without that document brokers may not offer the purchase to retail investors in the EU, and they block it technically. If your brokerage account does show you a US crypto ETF, the order type is worth a look: a purchase is usually possible only through classification as a professional client, and that requires evidence of wealth, trading experience and professional background.

Crypto ETNs are the usual detour through the securities account

In Europe, comparable products run as exchange traded notes, that is, as collateralised debt securities tradable on German exchanges. They track the price, you need no wallet of your own, and trading runs through your existing account. The price for that is an annual management fee and an issuer risk that does not exist on a direct purchase. Watch the collateralisation: whether the underlying coins are actually deposited, and with whom, is stated in the terms of issue. Which construction suits which purpose is something we have taken apart in our overview of crypto ETFs and ETNs in Germany.

The direct purchase through a regulated exchange

Since the European regulation on markets in crypto assets took full effect, providers targeting German clients need an authorisation as a crypto-asset service provider. Whether yours holds one you can look up in BaFin's register, and that is the first point to settle before an order. After that the hard costs count: trading fee, spread and withdrawal fee in euros. We compare the terms continuously in our overview of the best crypto exchanges. A second point concerns Litecoin in particular: since 2022 the blockchain has carried an optional confidentiality feature, and individual venues have delisted Litecoin in the past because of it. Before a larger purchase, check whether your provider carries the pair permanently.

Tax: the twelve-month period separates tax-free from taxable

On a move of eleven percent this section often decides more about your result than the entry price does.

A direct purchase falls under Section 23 of the Income Tax Act

If you buy Litecoin directly and hold it yourself or at an exchange, the sale counts as a private disposal under Section 23 of the German Income Tax Act. Sell within one year of buying and the gain is taxable at your personal income tax rate. Where more than twelve months lie between purchase and sale, the gain remains tax-free regardless of its size. For short-term gains there is an exemption limit of €1,000 per calendar year, and that is a limit, not an allowance: one euro above it and the entire gain is taxable.

In practice that means that with a purchase date inside the past twelve months you should work out before a sale what the tax office leaves of the price gain. Where there have been several purchases, what matters is the allocation of the units sold, usually under the method that treats the units bought first as sold first, separately per wallet.

ETNs and fund shares work differently

If you hold a security instead, the 25 percent withholding tax plus solidarity surcharge and, where applicable, church tax generally applies, and the one-year holding period does not help you there. For certain physically collateralised ETNs carrying a delivery claim on the deposited coins the treatment is disputed, and the tax authorities have not settled it conclusively. If this point matters for your amounts, clarify it with a tax adviser before the purchase and not after.

Leverage and liquidation: why an eleven percent day is the most expensive invitation

After a day like this, advertising for leveraged products measurably picks up, and that is exactly when the risk is greatest. The mechanism is simple. At leverage of ten, a countermove of ten percent is enough to consume the amount you put in. The daily range in our own query, from $59.11 to $69.48, came to roughly 17.5 percent of the daily low on that single day. A position at ten times leverage would have been closed out inside that range, even if the direction had turned out right in the end.

On top of that come running costs. Perpetual futures charge a funding rate at short intervals, and it depends on how the market is predominantly positioned. Where buyers are in the majority, they pay the sellers. In a phase when demand for long positions jumps, that rate can rise sharply, and it runs against you for as long as you stand on the crowded side. Before your first order, settle at what interval settlement occurs and at which price your position would be closed.

Custody: what to watch differently with Litecoin

Technically Litecoin is closely related to Bitcoin, but everyday use has its trip hazards. Blocks follow one another at shorter intervals, which is why a transfer is confirmed faster. That tempts people into looking less closely at a withdrawal.

Two points are concrete. First, several address formats exist for Litecoin historically, and older holdings still sit partly in a format some services no longer offer. Send a small amount as a test before a large withdrawal. Second, the risk of confusion with Bitcoin addresses is real, because the modern formats of both networks resemble each other. A transfer sent to the wrong network is as a rule lost.

If you want to hold a position for months, so as to be able to reach the twelve-month period at all, it does not belong permanently in an exchange account. A trading account is built for trading, not for safekeeping. You keep the recovery words of your own wallet separate from the device, on paper or on metal, never as a photo in cloud storage.

Levels above and below: how to recognise the next stage

A few verifiable reference points, all from the sources named above and without a forecast. On the downside the breakout point cited by CoinDesk at $60.60 is the first level that shows whether the breakout holds. Below it sits the daily low from our own query at $59.11. If the price falls back under that zone, the jump was a one-day event and not a turn in trend.

On the upside there is no clean technical point, because the price stands at its highest level since January according to CoinDesk, and above that lies little recent trading history. Two other things carry more information over the coming weeks: whether the network activity figure stays elevated over several days or drops back to its earlier level, and whether the SEC takes a further step in the Grayscale procedure. Both you can look up yourself, the one at the Litecoin Foundation, the other in EDGAR's full-text search.

This analysis was compiled by cryptoticker.io itself on September 24, 2026. Method: retrieval of market data for the twenty-five largest cryptocurrencies and of the individual data set on Litecoin through CoinGecko's public programming interface at 13:50 UTC, plus two full-text queries in the SEC's EDGAR system for filings on Litecoin funds. Twenty-five coins and four filing processes were checked. What we could not verify is the raw data behind the adjusted economic volume metric, because the Litecoin Foundation does not disclose the underlying analysis; that figure comes from the coverage and is marked accordingly.

Putting the Litecoin price jump in context: what to take away

1. First check whether you need to trade at all. The rise of 11.29 percent in one day is documented; the reasoning behind it only partly. If you are already invested, the day changes nothing about your original reasoning. If you want to enter fresh, do not do it through a leveraged product, because the daily range of 17.5 percent would have stopped out every position at ten times leverage. Anyone using futures products anyway should compare the funding rates and liquidation rules of the venues beforehand, for instance in our overview of the best perp DEXs.
2. Decide the buy route before the purchase, not after. The US spot ETF is practically inaccessible to you, a European ETN costs a management fee and carries issuer risk, a direct purchase demands custody of your own. If you want to buy directly and hold longer, you need a solution outside the exchange account; the devices and their differences are in the hardware wallet comparison.
3. Note the purchase date and cost basis immediately. On a direct purchase the twelve-month period under Section 23 of the Income Tax Act alone decides whether the gain stays tax-free, and the €1,000 exemption limit tips the entire amount into taxability one euro above it. Clean records per wallet are unavoidable, but they can be automated; you will find the providers for that under crypto tax tools and portfolio trackers.

Sources to read on: the assessment of network activity at CoinDesk of September 24, 2026 and the filing itself in the SEC's full-text search.

(As of September 24, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

Bitcoin Cash traded at $335.19 on September 24, 2026 at 12:54 UTC, 5.49 percent below its level 24 hours earlier (CoinGecko). The drop looks severe, but it follows a week that added 49.96 percent. Anyone holding BCH, or buying it over the past few days, now needs to settle three things: which route the purchase took, which holding period is running on that position, and whether the coins sit somewhere you can actually move them from if it matters.

The move has an identifiable trigger, and it is not today. It is September 22. What follows from it is less a price question than a question about buy route, tax year and custody.

Why the Bitcoin Cash price is falling today

The numbers first. Bitcoin Cash stood at $335.19, or €294.81, on September 24, 2026 at 12:54 UTC, according to CoinGecko. Over the past 24 hours the range ran from $325.60 to $359.23. Over seven days the gain is 49.96 percent, over 30 days 24.31 percent. On a one-year view BCH is down 40.17 percent, and the price sits 91.1 percent below the all-time high of $3,785.82 set on December 19, 2017.

Market capitalisation is roughly $6.73 billion, which ranks BCH 21st. Over the same period around $786 million of Bitcoin Cash changed hands. Supply in circulation is 20,093,784 BCH against a cap of 21 million.

The pullback is not an isolated event. Almost the entire large-cap market gave ground on September 24: Bitcoin lost 2.4 percent, Ethereum 2.9 percent, XRP 6.1 percent, Cardano 5.8 percent. A single coin shedding five percent in a weak market hour after a rally of nearly 50 percent is behaving unremarkably. What matters more than the daily loss is what set off the week before it.

What the CME Bitcoin Cash futures from October 19, 2026 mean

On September 22, 2026, CME Group announced it would extend its crypto derivatives suite with contracts on Bitcoin Cash and Uniswap. The launch is scheduled for October 19, 2026, explicitly subject to regulatory review. The contracts are to trade on the CME Globex platform.

Contract sizes are set. A standard Bitcoin Cash contract covers 250 BCH, the micro contract 25 BCH. For Uniswap it is 10,000 UNI per standard contract and 1,000 UNI per micro contract. Giovanni Vicioso, who runs CME's crypto product business, said in the release that the new contracts would let clients manage price risk and build exposure to these networks.

For a sense of scale, CME cites its own figures for the first half of 2026: an average of 279,800 crypto contracts traded per day, equivalent to a daily notional value of roughly $8.3 billion, with average open interest of 264,600 contracts, or $15.4 billion. The full release is available here in its original wording.

A futures contract is a binding agreement to take or make delivery of an underlying asset at a later date for a price fixed today; CME's crypto contracts settle in cash rather than in coins. There are two reasons a listing of this kind moves a price. First, a CME listing counts among institutional desks as evidence that a market is deep enough for professional risk management. Second, traders tend to buy the underlying ahead of the event, on the expectation of greater attention and more liquidity. Last week's jump carries both signatures.

Can retail investors in Germany reach the CME contracts?

As a rule, not directly. CME is a US futures exchange for professional market participants; access runs through a clearing member, and contract sizes are scaled accordingly. At today's price, 250 BCH is worth around $83,800, and even the micro contract of 25 BCH comes to roughly $8,380. German brokers offering access to the US futures market also require separate activation and a suitability check.

In practice this means the news works on your price, while the product itself is usually not your trading instrument. Anyone who still wants leveraged exposure to BCH almost always ends up with a contract for difference or a leveraged certificate at a broker. That is a different product with different rules, and those rules are why the next section matters more than the date in October.

Leverage, margin and liquidation: what really happens with a BCH derivative

Leverage describes the factor by which your position exceeds the money you put up for it. For retail clients in the European Union it is capped at 2:1 on contracts for difference on crypto assets, ever since the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) issued its product intervention measures and BaFin made them permanent in Germany. Put up €1,000 and you move at most €2,000 of exposure.

Two terms decide the outcome. Margin is the collateral your broker holds against the open position. Liquidation is the forced closure that follows once that collateral falls below a contractually defined threshold. At 2:1 leverage, a price decline in the mid double-digit percentage range is arithmetically enough to get there; how close the threshold actually sits is stated in your provider's contract terms and nowhere else.

Retail investors in the EU also benefit from negative balance protection: you cannot lose more than the amount you committed. That is genuine protection, but it does not change the fact that a daily range like today's, from $325.60 to $359.23, can wipe out the collateral on a leveraged position entirely. Anyone examining this route should compare cost and margin models first; an orderly overview is in our crypto broker comparison.

The buy route under MiCA: where to buy Bitcoin Cash properly in Germany

MiCA is the EU regulation on markets in crypto assets. It has applied in full since December 30, 2024, and since the German transitional regime expired, crypto service providers in the country may only operate with an authorisation as a crypto-asset service provider. For you that means one concrete step: before you buy, check whether your provider holds a MiCA authorisation from an EU member state and whether it can be found in BaFin's company database or in ESMA's register.

The second point concerns the trading pair. Bitcoin Cash is quoted at many venues against the US dollar or against a euro stablecoin, less often directly against the euro. Buying through a dollar pair adds a conversion step and its cost. The difference between spread, order fee and conversion mark-up tends to disappear into a single number on the confirmation screen; the only way to trace it is the provider's fee page. Which venues quote BCH properly against the euro, and on what terms, is set out in our crypto exchange comparison.

The holding period under Section 23 of the German Income Tax Act: why your purchase date on BCH counts now

In Germany, crypto assets held privately count as other assets. Gains on disposal are tax-free under Section 23 of the Income Tax Act if more than one year lies between acquisition and sale. Sell inside that year and the gain is taxed at your personal income tax rate. Since the 2024 Annual Tax Act an exemption limit of €1,000 per year applies to all private disposals taken together. An exemption limit is not an allowance: exceed it by one euro and the entire gain is taxable.

This is exactly where last week sets its trap. Anyone who bought BCH only in September 2026 is sitting in a position whose one-year period does not expire until September 2027. Selling into the pullback is therefore a taxable transaction as soon as private disposals across the year add up to more than €1,000 in gains. Anyone holding the same coins for longer than a year stands somewhere else entirely.

In practice you need three details per purchase: date, quantity and acquisition cost in euros. Where partial holdings are sold, the tax authorities generally apply the method under which the coins acquired first count as sold first. Without clean records this is barely reconstructable after the fact, and the burden of proof sits with you.

The December 31, 2026 cut-off date and the draft bill

Above the one-year period sits a project meant to replace it. Germany's Federal Ministry of Finance has drawn up a draft bill on the taxation of privately held crypto assets, which has been circulating between ministries since mid-September 2026. The draft would treat gains on crypto assets as investment income in future, subject to the 25 percent flat withholding tax plus the solidarity surcharge, regardless of how long they were held. Holdings acquired up to December 31, 2026 would keep the existing one-year rule.

Two qualifications belong with that, and both are verifiable. First, the draft is a working document inside the federal government. There is no cabinet decision so far, no introduction in the Bundestag, and therefore no reliable legal position. Second, a draft bill describes what a ministry proposes, not what will apply; changes during the remaining process are the norm. Our detailed assessment of this draft and the cut-off date is in the article "Krypto-Haltefrist und Bestandsschutz" of September 8, 2026.

For your BCH position that means nothing dramatic, but something concrete: the purchase date carries additional weight this year, and documenting your 2026 acquisitions is the basis for being able to show later which regime a position falls under. Anyone already carrying around unsorted transaction data now has a better occasion to clean it up than in the spring under deadline pressure.

Custody: CashAddr, BTC addresses and the expensive beginner's mistake

Bitcoin Cash has used its own address format called CashAddr since 2018, recognisable by the prefix bitcoincash followed by a colon. Alongside it, older addresses in what is known as the legacy format are still in circulation, and they are visually almost indistinguishable from Bitcoin addresses. That is precisely where the classic error comes from: sending BCH to a Bitcoin address, or the reverse. The two chains share a common history up to the split in August 2017, but they have been separate networks since, with no shared validity for transactions.

So check two things before every withdrawal. First, whether the receiving address really is in CashAddr format, or whether your destination wallet supports legacy addresses cleanly. Second, whether your provider explicitly offers the Bitcoin Cash network at the withdrawal step, rather than a wrapped token on another chain. A small test withdrawal before the large transfer costs a fee measured in cents and is the cheapest insurance this subject knows.

The question of principle remains whether the coins should sit on the trading platform at all. Anyone who wants to trade needs them there. Anyone holding for years accepts, through custody at the provider, a counterparty risk covered by no deposit guarantee scheme. A hardware wallet shifts that risk onto you, along with responsibility for backing up the recovery words.

The Grayscale filing and ETF speculation: what is actually documented

Alongside the CME release, market commentary regularly names a second point: asset manager Grayscale has updated the registration documents for its Bitcoin Cash Trust, aiming at a listing on NYSE Arca. What that documents is a filing, not an approval. Whether and when the US Securities and Exchange Commission agrees is open, and even an approval in the United States would not automatically make such a product available to German retail investors.

For you this is therefore an expectation priced into the market, not a basis for action. In Germany the orderly route to an exchange-traded crypto product runs through debt securities listed on Xetra and other venues. Whether such a paper exists for Bitcoin Cash with sufficient tradability is something you check in your broker's securities search, not in a market report.

Levels above and below: how to measure the pullback

Anyone watching what happens next needs verifiable reference points rather than price targets. On the downside the daily low of $325.60 is the first level, and below it lies the area the past week's move started from: with a weekly gain of 49.96 percent, the price seven days ago worked out at roughly $223. On the upside today's daily high of $359.23 is the nearest level.

Two dates structure the coming weeks. October 19, 2026 is the announced launch date for the CME contracts, subject to regulatory review; a postponement would be no surprise. December 31, 2026 is the cut-off date the finance ministry's draft bill turns on. The first date concerns your price, the second your tax file, and the second is the more plannable of the two.

Analyst price targets for BCH are circulating in quantity at the moment, from $500 upwards. Numbers of that kind come from individual houses and commentators, they are not a forecast by this newsroom, and they carry the usual uncertainty of a market still a good 91 percent below its all-time high.

Bitcoin Cash after the pullback: what to take away

1. Check the buy route. Look up whether your provider holds a MiCA authorisation and whether you trade BCH there against the euro or through a dollar pair. Your provider's fee page is the source, not the order confirmation screen; the starting point for that comparison is our crypto exchange comparison.
2. Secure your purchase data. Export date, quantity and acquisition cost in euros for every BCH position and file it before the year ends. Anyone with many transactions gets there faster with a tool than with a spreadsheet; the established providers are in the comparison of tax and portfolio tools.
3. Decide on custody. Set which part of your BCH stays tradable on the platform and which moves into self-custody, and test the transfer with a small amount in CashAddr format. Which devices qualify is shown in the hardware wallet comparison.

Price data in this article: CoinGecko, retrieved on September 24, 2026 at 12:54 UTC (Bitcoin Cash market data at CoinGecko).

(As of September 24, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

BRC-20 tokens are Bitcoin blockchain tokens produced using the Ordinals protocol. These tokens are gaining popularity in the crypto world due to their unique features and benefits. Here are the top 10 BRC-20 tokens: 

Unlike other token standards that rely on complex smart contracts, the BRC-20 token standard has a simplified tokenization process that makes it simple to use.

1. (ORDI)

Ordi is the top BRC-20 token on Coinranking with a market cap of $201.23 million. It is a decentralized platform that allows users to create and trade NFTs.

2. Wojak Coin (WOJAK)

Wojak Coin is the second most popular BRC-20 token on Coinranking with a market cap of $12.18 million. It is a meme-inspired token that aims to bring humor to the crypto world.

3. Piza (PIZA)

Piza is a BRC-20 token with a market cap of $2.24 million. It is a decentralized platform that allows users to create and trade NFTs.

4. PEPE (PEPEBRC)

PEPE is a BRC-20 token with a market cap of $37.46 million. It is a meme-inspired token that aims to bring humor to the crypto world.

5. NALS (NALS)

NALS is a BRC-20 token with a market cap of $6.23 million. It is a decentralized platform that allows users to create and trade NFTs.

6. Moon (MOON)

Moon is a BRC-20 token with a market cap of $3.19 million. It is a meme-inspired token that aims to bring humor to the crypto world.

7. Trac (TRAC)

Trac is a BRC-20 token with a market cap of $1.92 million. It is a decentralized platform that allows users to create and trade NFTs.

8. Losercoin (LOWB)

Losercoin is a BRC-20 token with a market cap of $1.34 million. It is a meme-inspired token that aims to bring humor to the crypto world.

9. BSV (BSV)

BSV is a BRC-20 token with a market cap of $875,744. It is a decentralized platform that allows users to create and trade NFTs.

10. Geke (GEKE)

Geke is a BRC-20 token with a market cap of $442,007. It is a decentralized platform that allows users to create and trade NFTs.

What is the difference between BRC-20 tokens and Layer-1 coins?

BRC-20 tokens and Layer-1 currencies differ in several ways. BRC-20 tokens are generated on the Bitcoin blockchain using the Ordinals protocol, whereas Layer-1 coins are generated on their blockchain. 

BRC-20 tokens are fungible tokens that use ordinal inscriptions to enable minting and transfer capabilities, whereas Layer-1 coins are used for a variety of reasons like trading, investing, and constructing NFTs. Furthermore, BRC-20 tokens operate on the Bitcoin network, but Layer-1 currencies operate on their blockchain network.

How do BRC-20 tokens compare to ERC-20 tokens in terms of ease of use?

In various aspects, BRC-20 tokens differ from other token standards. BRC-20 tokens operate on the Bitcoin network, whereas ERC-20 tokens operate on the Ethereum network. BRC-20 tokens are issued in a community-oriented manner, with a limit put on mints, allowing several ordinals wallets to participate in the BRC-20 token minting process. 

Unlike other token standards that rely on complex smart contracts, the BRC-20 token standard employs a straightforward tokenization mechanism. Furthermore, BRC-20 tokens are fungible tokens that use ordinal inscriptions to facilitate minting and transfer.

In terms of use, BRC-20 tokens and ERC-20 tokens differ. BRC-20 coins use a basic tokenization process that is simple to use, avoiding smart contracts, which can be difficult to configure at times. 

ERC-20 tokens, on the other hand, are smart contracts that may communicate with other protocols or apps on the Ethereum network, providing them significantly more capability than BRC-20 tokens. Furthermore, BRC-20 tokens are less adaptable than ERC-20 tokens, which have been available for a long time and are the more established token standard.

Can BRC-20 tokens interact with other protocols or applications on the Bitcoin network?

BRC-20 tokens cannot interact with any other protocols or apps on the Bitcoin network. They use a basic tokenization process that avoids smart contracts, which might be difficult to set up at times. Layer-2 technologies, like the Lightning Network, can, nevertheless, be used for BRC-20 tokens, allowing for speedier and more cost-effective transactions.

How are BRC-20 tokens minted and transferred on the Bitcoin network?

The Ordinals protocol is used to create and transfer BRC-20 tokens on the Bitcoin network. To build token contracts, mint, and transfer tokens, BRC-20 tokens use Ordinals inscriptions of JSON data. 

The BRC-20 token standard now provides for the creation of a BRC-20 token with the deploy function, the minting of an amount of BRC-20 tokens with the mint function, and the transfer of BRC-20 tokens with the transfer function. The BRC-20 token standard employs a simplified tokenization process that makes it simple to use, avoiding the usage of smart contracts, which can be difficult to configure at times.

How can BRC-20 tokens impact Bitcoin fees and transactions?

The rapid proliferation of BRC-20 tokens on the Bitcoin network has resulted in more traffic, higher transaction costs, and scalability concerns. Creating and exchanging BRC-20 tokens is more sophisticated than basic peer-to-peer transactions and takes up more space on the blockchain, contributing to Bitcoin network congestion. 

As more projects and consumers embrace BRC-20 tokens, the Bitcoin network’s transaction volume is put under additional strain, worsening congestion. Furthermore, BRC-20 tokens frequently demand users to exchange or swap their tokens on decentralized exchanges (DEXs) or centralized exchanges, which generates additional on-chain activity and contributes to overall network congestion on the Bitcoin network. Layer-2 protocols, like the Lightning Network, can, nevertheless, be used for BRC-20 tokens, allowing for speedier and more cost-effective transactions.​

A newly created wallet drained hot and cold reserves labeled as belonging to Bitget across multiple blockchains in under an hour.

A proposed class action accuses OpenAI of quietly routing real conversations to outside contractors through a program called Project Lily—without telling users first.

Muse Charm is Meta's palm-sized gadget for talking to its Muse AI agent on the go. It has cameras, a fingerprint sensor, and its own cell connection.

A February research paper showing AI can unmask pseudonymous internet users is freaking everyone out again this week. Here's what the paper actually says.

Attorney General Letitia James and Governor Kathy Hochul allege the prediction market operates without a license and exposes New Yorkers to gambling harms.

JPMorgan says Bitcoin’s brief move above the crucial $85,000 production-cost level could ease pressure on miners after BTC spent a staggering 280 days below it.

Solana-based stablecoins can now be used to book flights across more than 300 airlines through crypto travel platform Nomadz, expanding the network’s real-world payments footprint into global travel.

BlackRock-designed investment portfolios are officially moving onto blockchain rails.

XRP trading in South Korea outpaces the U.S. as Upbit drives $224 million in daily volume, leaving Coinbase metrics behind.

Elon Musk is back on the crypto timeline as DOGE drops into a rare buying zone.

TLDR

• Paramount Skydance stock climbs after launching a $7.5 billion loan plan
• New financing supports the company’s Warner Bros. Discovery acquisition deal
• Paramount prepares a broader $44.4 billion secured debt funding package
• Legal settlements help clear major hurdles for the Hollywood merger
• PSKY shares gain as investors track progress on the transaction

Paramount Skydance Corporation (PSKY) stock closed at $10.18, gaining 2.21% after recovering from early losses. The company advanced toward the $10.20 resistance zone as trading activity strengthened late in the session. The move followed Paramount’s launch of a $7.5 billion loan syndication to support its Warner Bros. Discovery acquisition.

Paramount Skydance Corporation Class B Common Stock, PSKY

Paramount Skydance Launches $7.5 Billion Debt Financing

Paramount Skydance started the senior secured term loan process as part of its broader merger funding plan. The financing supports the company’s proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery and related debt repayments. Therefore, the loan represents a major step in completing the transaction’s financial structure.

The company plans to raise about $44.4 billion in additional secured debt alongside previously announced funding arrangements. Paramount will combine the new borrowings with cash reserves and equity financing proceeds. This strategy aims to provide the capital needed for the Warner Bros. Discovery purchase.

Bank of America, Citigroup, and Apollo are leading the debt financing process for the acquisition. The wider package includes investment-grade loans, bonds, and second-lien debt structures. , the financing effort ranks among the largest entertainment industry funding deals.

Warner Bros. Discovery Deal Moves Toward Completion

Paramount Skydance’s agreement to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery gained momentum after resolving legal challenges. The company settled an antitrust case involving several state attorneys general and the Writers Guild of America. As a result, the merger moved closer to receiving final approvals.

The proposed transaction could reshape Hollywood by combining Paramount’s media assets with Warner Bros. Discovery’s entertainment portfolio. The deal would bring major brands and streaming platforms under one corporate structure. The companies continue preparing for completion after clearing key regulatory issues.

The merger remains supported by significant equity commitments from major financial backers. Larry Ellison has committed substantial equity support, while Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds joined the financing effort. However, the combined company would carry significant debt following the transaction.

PSKY Stock Gains as Financing Supports Merger Plans

Paramount Skydance strengthened as the company advanced its acquisition funding process. The shares recovered from intraday weakness and maintained positive momentum during the closing session. Meanwhile, market activity reflected attention toward developments surrounding the Warner Bros. Discovery agreement.

The combined Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery company is expected to carry considerable financial obligations after completion. Morgan Stanley analysts previously estimated the merged entity could hold substantial net debt. Therefore, the financing structure remains a central factor in the merger process.

Paramount Skydance continues working toward completing the Warner Bros. Discovery acquisition within the expected timeline. The company’s latest debt move marks another milestone in its strategy to finalize the transaction. Meanwhile, PSKY stock performance remains linked to progress surrounding the major entertainment merger.

The post Paramount Skydance (PSKY) Stock: Rises as $7.5B Loan Fuels WBD Deal appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• CFTC guidance now covers tokenized permitted assets and blockchain-based regulatory recordkeeping.
• Regulation 1.25 still limits eligible customer investments despite expanded guidance on tokenized assets.
• Tokenized collateral must preserve the same legal and economic rights as its traditional equivalent.
• Blockchain records can satisfy Regulation 1.31 if they remain reliable, accessible and producible.

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission has expanded its crypto guidance to explain how regulated derivatives firms can handle tokenized investments and digital recordkeeping. The September 24 update addresses two practical questions facing regulated firms.

It covers customer funds invested in tokenized permitted assets and the use of blockchain systems for records. The revisions were issued by the agency’s Market Participants Division, Division of Market Oversight, and Division of Clearing and Risk.

However, the guidance does not change existing regulations. The underlying FAQs state that staff interpretations do not create enforceable rights, amend CFTC rules, or guarantee protection from future enforcement action.

Tokenized Assets Must Still Meet Existing Investment Rules

The latest clarification builds on guidance published in March covering the use of crypto-related infrastructure within existing derivatives regulations. A key distinction remains between tokenized assets representing permitted financial instruments and standalone cryptocurrencies that are not eligible under customer investment rules.

Earlier guidance said swap dealers may use tokenized forms of eligible collateral when those instruments satisfy existing regulatory standards. Those tokenized instruments must also provide legal and economic rights equivalent to the rights attached to their traditional versions.

However, the framework does not automatically make every cryptocurrency suitable for customer funds. The March FAQs specifically said Staff Letter 26-05 did not change the list of permitted investments under Regulation 1.25.

They also said futures commission merchants could not invest customer funds directly in payment stablecoins solely because those assets appeared within broader crypto guidance. The distinction keeps the focus on the underlying asset rather than its digital format.

As a result, tokenization can change how ownership or settlement is represented without changing whether the investment itself qualifies under existing rules.

Blockchain Records Must Still Meet Regulation 1.31 Standards

The second clarification addresses whether regulated firms can use blockchain technology to satisfy recordkeeping obligations. CFTC Regulation 1.31 already follows a technology-neutral framework for storing, retaining, and producing regulated records.

That structure was designed to accommodate changing electronic systems rather than require firms to use one specific recordkeeping technology. The updated guidance therefore gives firms a clearer compliance route for distributed ledger systems.

Records must still remain reliable, accessible, retained for the required period, and available when regulators request them. The update also aligns with Chairman Michael Selig’s recent comments about tokenization, stablecoins, and potentially continuous markets becoming more important within derivatives infrastructure.

For regulated firms, the main clarification is operational rather than expansive. Blockchain infrastructure can fit within existing CFTC compliance systems, but technology alone does not determine whether a structure is permissible.

The underlying asset, custody arrangements, accessibility of records, and existing regulatory requirements remain central to compliance.

The post CFTC Expands Crypto Guidance to Cover Tokenized Assets and Blockchain-Based Records appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• SMX stock drops as molecular marking technology gains manufacturing attention
• Company builds digital tools for material tracking and verification processes
• SMX platform connects physical materials with secure digital records
• Technology supports recycling, compliance, and supply chain transparency
• Molecular verification aims to improve trust across industrial markets

SMX (Security Matters) Public Limited Company (SMX) stock traded at $8.77, down 9.02%, after a sharp decline from the $9.60 area. The shares found support near $8.00 before recovering slightly during the afternoon session. The movement came as the company highlighted its molecular marking technology for improving manufacturing transparency.

SMX (Security Matters) Public Limited Company, SMX

SMX Stock Falls as Company Expands Material Traceability Technology

SMX develops technology that gives physical materials unique molecular identities and connects them with digital records. The system allows manufacturers to track material origin, recycled content, authenticity, and movement across supply chains. Therefore, the company aims to improve verification standards across industrial markets.

The technology focuses on replacing traditional tracking methods that depend mainly on documents and supplier information. SMX embeds markers into materials and links them with secure digital records. This approach helps companies verify product information throughout different stages of production.

Meanwhile, manufacturers face growing pressure to improve supply chain visibility and meet stricter compliance requirements. SMX positions its platform as a tool for industries seeking stronger material verification. The company’s solutions support sectors that require accurate records of production and material usage.

Molecular Technology Supports Trusted Manufacturing Processes

SMX’s Digital Material Passport Platform connects physical materials with digital information throughout their lifecycle. The platform records details from manufacturing through reuse, recycling, and resale. As a result, companies can maintain clearer records of material history and ownership.

The technology supports efforts to increase recycling efficiency by identifying materials and tracking their movement. Manufacturers can use verified information to improve resource management. This creates a system where materials maintain reliable digital identities beyond initial production.

SMX’s technology addresses challenges linked to global supply chains and sourcing verification. Companies increasingly require accurate information about materials and production methods. The platform provides a framework for improving transparency between manufacturers, regulators, and customers.

SMX Targets Greater Supply Chain Transparency With Digital Verification

The company’s molecular marking technology supports industries seeking better control over manufacturing data. SMX focuses on making material claims easier to confirm through digital verification. This creates opportunities for companies that need stronger proof of origin and compliance.

The technology can help manufacturers demonstrate domestic production standards through verifiable material records. Supply chain participants can access information about where materials originated and how they moved. This reduces reliance on traditional labeling systems alone.

SMX continues developing solutions designed for a manufacturing environment that values transparency and accountability. The company’s platform connects physical materials with digital records to strengthen industrial verification. However, SMX stock performance remains influenced by market activity and company developments as the business expands its technology adoption.

The post SMX (SMX) Stock: Drops as Molecular Technology Powers Future of Trusted Manufacturing appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• CoreWeave stock gains after JPMorgan raises its rating to overweight
• The bank highlights stronger pricing conditions across the compute market
• Premium short-term contracts support CoreWeave’s near-term revenue outlook
• The company continues expanding its role in large-scale computing services
• CRWV shares rise as brokerage confidence improves across the sector

CoreWeave, Inc. (CRWV) stock traded at $89.89, up 3.45%, after JPMorgan upgraded the company from neutral to overweight. The upgrade reflects stronger demand for computing capacity and improving pricing conditions. The brokerage also raised its price target to $125 from $120.

CoreWeave, Inc. Class A Common Stock, CRWV

JPMorgan highlighted CoreWeave’s ability to secure premium short-term contracts as demand remains strong. The company has increased its focus on flexible agreements that support higher pricing opportunities. Therefore, the upgrade reflects expectations for stronger business performance.

CoreWeave provides large-scale computing infrastructure for advanced technology companies and research operations. The company has positioned itself within the expanding market for high-performance computing services. Meanwhile, demand growth continues to support expansion across the sector.

JPMorgan Points to Stronger Compute Pricing Environment

The JPMorgan upgrade comes as computing demand continues to increase across multiple industries. The brokerage expects pricing conditions to improve as companies seek additional capacity. CoreWeave’s contract strategy has also become a key factor behind the rating change.

The company has expanded its infrastructure footprint to meet rising demand for computing resources. However, the sector continues to require significant investment in facilities and equipment. CoreWeave’s growth strategy depends on maintaining capacity while securing long-term customer relationships.

The latest rating change follows broader market attention toward companies linked to computing infrastructure. Other technology firms have also received updated ratings based on demand trends. As a result, brokerage activity has focused on companies positioned for future expansion.

CoreWeave Growth Strategy Supports Market Attention

CoreWeave entered the public market with a focus on providing specialized computing infrastructure. The company has attracted attention due to increasing demand from technology firms. Its business model relies on delivering scalable computing services through large infrastructure networks.

JPMorgan’s revised outlook highlights CoreWeave’s pricing power and contract flexibility. The company’s short-term premium agreements provide additional opportunities during periods of strong demand. These agreements can support revenue growth as capacity expands.

CoreWeave continues to develop its market presence while navigating infrastructure requirements. The latest upgrade places the company among firms benefiting from rising computing needs. The stock movement reflects renewed market attention following the brokerage assessment.

The post CoreWeave, Inc. (CRWV) Stock: Gains Momentum as JPMorgan Sees Strong AI Demand appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• Oracle stock declines as Project Jupiter faces New Mexico permit challenges and delays
• The company invokes force majeure terms to limit risks from possible project setbacks
• Project Jupiter remains central to Oracle’s large artificial intelligence expansion plans
• Data center hurdles raise concerns around infrastructure delivery and future revenue timing
• Oracle continues its cloud growth push despite rising development and funding pressures

Oracle (ORCL) shares traded at $138.43, down 6.13%, after reports highlighted challenges around its New Mexico data center project. The decline followed concerns about Project Jupiter and possible delays affecting the planned facility launch. Oracle has moved to protect its financial position as the large infrastructure project faces regulatory obstacles.

Oracle Corporation, ORCL

Oracle Moves to Reduce Exposure From New Mexico Data Center Project

Oracle notified the project developer about a force majeure provision linked to Project Jupiter, according to reports. The move aims to delay certain payments if the facility fails to start operations in 2028. Oracle stated that the project remains on its planned schedule.

Project Jupiter forms part of a major infrastructure expansion involving Oracle, OpenAI, and SoftBank. The New Mexico campus targets 2.45 gigawatts of power capacity for advanced computing workloads. The project has faced permit issues and public concerns over energy demand.

The facility depends on supporting infrastructure, including power solutions from suppliers such as Bloom Energy. Regulatory decisions affecting energy routes have created additional challenges for the development timeline. Delays could affect the broader rollout of the planned data center network.

Oracle Faces Revenue Timing and Funding Pressure

Oracle has expanded its data center capacity to support growing cloud service demand. The company reported $664 billion in remaining performance obligations from future contracted sales. Delays in infrastructure delivery could affect the timing of revenue recognition.

The company has increased spending to build additional capacity for large computing contracts. This expansion contributed to negative free cash flow of $5.4 billion in its latest earnings report. As a result, funding requirements remain a key factor in Oracle’s infrastructure strategy.

Rising borrowing costs have also created pressure for companies developing large facilities. Oracle continues to balance long-term cloud growth with higher infrastructure expenses. The New Mexico project remains a major part of its future expansion plans.

Oracle’s latest move highlights challenges facing large data center developments across the technology sector. The company continues to pursue its infrastructure goals while addressing regulatory and financial concerns. Project Jupiter’s progress will remain linked to permit approvals and construction timelines.

The post Oracle (ORCL) Stock: Retreats as New Mexico AI Campus Faces Permit Challenges appeared first on Blockonomi.

Just a few days ago, SUI crossed the $1 psychological level and surged to a four-month high of $1.05.

Bears then stepped in and pushed the price down to $0.95 (per CoinGecko), but according to popular analyst Ali Martinez, the bull market has already begun.

Why So?

The X user said that after an 83% drop during the bear market, SUI has flashed one of its most important macro bullish signals. Specifically, the Parabolic SAR dots have flipped below price on the weekly chart, indicating a shift from a downtrend into a new uptrend.

“The indicator is designed to identify trend direction and potential reversals, with dots below the price signaling bullish momentum. After such a deep correction, this weekly flip suggests that SUI has finally entered a new bull market,” the analyst claimed.

This isn’t the first time Martinez has touched on the asset this month. Several days ago, he outlined three key reasons why the price can soon reach $1.40. Some of those include the Tom DeMark Sequential, which printed a 13th buy signal in late July, and the SuperTrend indicator, which also flipped to “buy.”

Lucky and Michael van de Poppe have also paid attention to SUI lately. The former argued that the token has been screaming NEAR vibes, highlighting its “strong development, growing ecosystem, and plenty of momentum” behind its network.

“Expecting SUI to go on a majestic run from here,” the X user added.

Michael van de Poppe warned that SUI may experience a correction (as it did), but could then jump toward $1.16 and $1.60 in the coming period.

For his part, Crypto With Gopal noted that the coin has printed a massive double bottom on its chart. He said SUI has defended the $0.55-$0.60 zone for the second time, while the neckline sits near $2.70.

“A confirmed breakout could signal a major momentum shift. The chart projects a potential move toward $5.00 if the neckline breaks convincingly. Market sentiment: Bullish setup – breakout confirmation is key,” the analyst projected.

Additional Forecasts

Earlier this week, Crypto Tony identified $1.12 as the first bullish target about to be hit, saying he plans to take some profits once the price reaches that level.

KALEO has also been quite vocal on the matter. The analyst first claimed that SUI looks like “it’s finally ready to break out.” Shortly after, they predicted a quick squeeze from $1 to $2, adding that people forget how fast the asset can run once it starts rallying.

The post SUI Flashes a Key Macro Signal: Has the Bull Market Begun? appeared first on CryptoPotato.

A clear difference has emerged in the long-term MVRV levels of major crypto assets. Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Chainlink are slightly above 0%. This means the average market participant who has held these assets over the past year is still sitting on a small profit.

XRP and Dogecoin, on the other hand, are in a different position.

Deep MVRV Discounts

According to the latest findings by Santiment, XRP’s 365-day MVRV stands at around -11.75%. DOGE is even lower at about -19.26%. The negative readings essentially mean that many long-term holders are currently holding unrealized losses. A lower MVRV can sometimes point to lower selling pressure.

Fewer traders are sitting on large profits that could lead to immediate selling. In previous instances, periods of heavy unrealized losses have also created longer-term recovery opportunities.

Santiment stated that XRP and DOGE currently stand out because their long-term holders remain deep in the red even as the market recovered.

“BTC, ETH, and LINK aren’t suddenly ‘bad buys’ just because their MVRV is slightly positive. But when comparing opportunities, assets far below 0% often deserve extra attention. The deeper the losses compared with other coins, the more interesting the setup can become.”

Fresh Selling Pressure

After a strong start to the week, the crypto market has started to cool off. XRP has been hit particularly hard in the latest pullback. Ripple’s native token dropped more than 7% over the past 24 hours and is now trading near the $1.48 level. Ali Martinez believes that “everything comes down to $1.60.” As such, a decisive break above this could confirm the pattern and trigger another 30% rally toward $2.

The OG meme coin, meanwhile, is also among the poorest performers in the past day as it shed 6.6%.

It faced a setback earlier this month when Bitwise announced that it would shut down its spot DOGE ETF, BWOW, after roughly 10 months, citing changes in investor demand and its plans to optimize its product lineup. The fund was scheduled to trade on NYSE Arca until October 14 before being liquidated.

However, investor interest in US-based spot DOGE ETFs appears to have picked up since then. These funds raked in $909,650 on Monday, and around $1.2 million on Tuesday, pushing weekly net inflows above $2 million.

The post XRP and DOGE Are Deep in the Red: Could That Be a Bullish Signal? appeared first on CryptoPotato.

New York Attorney General Letitia James and Governor Kathy Hochul sued Polymarket’s US arm on Thursday, alleging the prediction market has been running an illegal gambling operation in the state without a license.

The suit targets QCX LLC, which does business as Polymarket US and launched in the United States in December 2025, letting users bet money on sporting events and other outcomes.

Triple Fines and Restitution Sought

The state argues those markets meet New York’s legal definition of gambling because their results are uncertain and outside the bettor’s control, and says the company never obtained a license from the New York State Gaming Commission or paid the taxes licensed operators owe.

The complaint also says Polymarket lets users aged 18 to 20 trade, while New York requires mobile sports bettors to be at least 21.

James is asking the court to halt Polymarket’s unlicensed gambling operations in New York, order it to forfeit all illegal gains and pay restitution to harmed users, and impose fines equal to three times those gains.

“Our gambling laws exist to protect New Yorkers, prevent the potential harms of problem gambling, and ensure funding for educational and public benefit programs,” James said.

Hochul said Polymarket had knowingly violated state law and put New Yorkers at risk, particularly underage users most vulnerable to problem gambling.

“We’ll fight for our users,” Polymarket Chief Legal Officer Neal Kumar said in a statement reported by the Associated Press.

Kumar added that the company started in a small New York City apartment, now employs more than 350 people in the city and intends to stay.

Kalshi, Coinbase and Gemini Came First

The case follows the state’s lawsuit against Kalshi in July, which made the same unlicensed gambling and underage access arguments and was filed in Manhattan state court. James sued Coinbase and Gemini in April over their prediction market products.

Likewise, Baltimore separately sued both Kalshi and Polymarket on August 13, alleging they misled consumers about whether their products were legal and properly regulated.

The platforms argue that states have no authority over them because the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) regulates them at the federal level. Kalshi has said its contracts are federally regulated derivatives, not gambling products subject to state gaming laws, and the CFTC has opposed state regulation of the sector.

The post New York Sues Polymarket Over Alleged Unlicensed Gambling and Underage Trading appeared first on CryptoPotato.

[PRESS RELEASE – Willemstad, Curaçao, September 24th, 2026]

1win Markets has launched Crypto Live, a new category for short-term cryptocurrency price predictions. The new format allows users to predict whether the price of major cryptocurrencies will move higher or lower over a selected period, with intervals ranging from five minutes to one day.

Crypto Live turns crypto price movements into a simple two-option prediction. Instead of trying to guess exactly where Bitcoin, Ethereum, or Solana will trade next, users choose whether the price will be Higher or Lower than it was at the beginning of the round.

At launch, Crypto Live features BTC, ETH, SOL, BNB, XRP and DOGE, with prediction rounds available across five timeframes.

How 1win’s Crypto Live works

• Pick a coin: BTC, ETH, SOL, BNB, XRP or DOGE
• Choose a timeframe: 5 min, 15 min, 1 hour, 4 hours, or 1 day
• Make the call: Higher or Lower
• Watch the price: follow the market during the round
• Get the result: when time runs out, the closing price is compared with the price at the start of the round

For example, Bitcoin is trading at $110,000 when a five-minute round begins. A user who thinks BTC will be above that price five minutes later selects Higher. If Bitcoin finishes the round above $110,000, Higher wins; if it finishes below, Lower wins.

The same format applies across every available cryptocurrency and timeframe, with new rounds repeating throughout the day.

Crypto Live brings a faster format to 1win Markets. While many prediction markets focus on questions that can take days, weeks or even months to resolve, Crypto Live is built around decisions with near-immediate outcomes. The shortest rounds take just five minutes from the opening price to the final result.

The format also removes the need to predict an exact price target. A user doesn’t need to decide whether Bitcoin will reach $112,000 or Ethereum will hit $4,500. The question is simply about direction: will the price be higher or lower when the timer reaches zero?

With crypto trading 24/7, Crypto Live allows users to make predictions across different market conditions and time horizons — from a five-minute BTC move to where SOL, ETH or DOGE could be by the end of the day.

Additional features are planned following the initial launch, including the ability to make predictions on upcoming rounds and manage multiple active positions more easily.

Crypto Live is available as a dedicated category within 1win Markets.

About 1win

Founded in 2016, 1win is a crypto entertainment platform in the global gaming industry. Operating across Asia, Latin America, and Africa, 1win offers a wide range of entertainment products adapted to regional audiences. In 2026, 1win welcomed rapper Tyga, UFC legend Ilia Topuria, reggaeton star Nicky Jam, Olympic champion and UFC fighter Gable Steveson, and Nina Drama, UFC interviewer and content creator, as members of the 1win VIP community.

The post Bitcoin Up or Down in 5 Minutes? 1win Markets Launches Crypto Live appeared first on CryptoPotato.

[PRESS RELEASE – Miami, Florida, September 24th, 2026]

A Metalayer Capital strategy backed by an initial institutional allocation uses GLDY as the long leg of a delta-neutral gold trade, creating a new channel for demand for Streamex’s yield-bearing tokenized gold, with follow-on investments anticipated.

Streamex Corp., a Nasdaq-listed a technology company building the future of the commodity markets through tokenization, has secured a commitment of institutional capital, a test of whether tokenized commodities can draw buyers beyond individual investors.

A leading institutional investor has made an initial $1 million allocation, with follow-on investments anticipated, to a relative-value strategy that uses GLDY, Streamex’s gold-backed token, as its long gold position, according to a person with knowledge of the matter who isn’t authorized to speak on behalf of the company. The strategy is run by Metalayer Capital, a systematic investment manager, through its Aureon Relative Value Fund, the person said. Metalayer Capital was founded by former Two Sigma executives. Metalayer Capital declined to comment.

The strategy pairs GLDY with an offsetting short position in gold-linked perpetual futures, so it is designed to be largely indifferent to whether gold prices rise or fall, the person said. It aims instead to earn the yield GLDY pays, which Streamex targets at 3.5% a year in additional gold generated through a gold-leasing program.

For Streamex, the significance lies in the mechanics: money deployed into the long position goes into GLDY, adding to the assets under management on which the company earns fees.

The initial allocation of $1 million is final, with follow-on investments anticipated, and its significance lies in who is buying: it suggests that tokenized securities such as GLDY are drawing interest not only from accredited individual investors but also from the institutional investor community.

In August, Streamex laid out a list of goals for the following 90 days. “Converting the first institutional allocations into GLDY was at the top of that list,” said Henry McPhie, the company’s co-founder and chief executive. He called the arrangement “a fundamentally different growth channel than selling to one investor at a time.”

Beyond the initial $1 million, the rest of the commitment remain at the purview of the investor, and there is no assurance that any additional amount of GLDY will be bought.

The companies have other ties. Metalayer also acts as a liquidity provider for GLDY on certain trading venues and can mint and redeem the token directly with the issuer, the person said. Streamex doesn’t manage or sponsor the fund and isn’t compensated based on money the fund raises.

GLDY is offered only to eligible investors under exemptions from securities registration, and its holders to date have largely been accredited investors seeking yield. Streamex has made six consecutive monthly distributions on the token, most recently in September, and publishes its gold reserves through a Chainlink proof-of-reserves feed.

The post Streamex Converts Interest Into Capital as GLDY Investment Strategy Secures $1M+ Institutional Allocation appeared first on CryptoPotato.