The incident underscores the growing intersection of cybersecurity and international diplomacy, potentially escalating geopolitical tensions.

The post Trump says US would contact North Korea if it’s tied to the $6.3 billion Binance hack appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The movement of stolen SOL highlights ongoing security challenges in crypto, potentially influencing market trust and regulatory scrutiny.

The post 485,270 SOL worth $46M moves from Binance hack to unknown wallet appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Binance's swift recovery and financial resilience post-breach may bolster user trust but highlights ongoing security challenges in crypto exchanges.

The post Binance restores USDC, USDT, ETH, and BNB withdrawals after hot wallet breach appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Strategy's pivot to digital credit could reduce equity dilution but increases obligations, impacting shareholder dynamics and market perception.

The post Michael Saylor says Strategy can thrive without Bitcoin or equity appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Binance's wallet update aims to restore trust post-breach, but full recovery hinges on successful withdrawals and cryptographic verification.

The post Binance updates Proof of Reserves addresses, will route all withdrawals through new wallets appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

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Bitcoin Magazine

MSTR Q3 2026 Earnings Call: Analyst Q&A

The full analyst Q&A from Strategy’s (MSTR) Q3 2026 earnings call. Phong Le and Michael Saylor take questions from BTIG’s Andrew Harte, Treasury’s Khing Oei, Galaxy’s Alex Thorn, Citi’s Pete Christiansen and Scott Melker on digital credit, Stretch (STRC) returning to par, the other preferreds, Bitcoin’s financialization and tokenization.

Chapters:
00:00 Strategy’s Balance Sheet vs. the Last Bull Market
02:38 You Need a Lot of Capital to Create a Lot of Credit
04:30 When Does Strategy Turn the Equity ATM Back On?
06:06 Why STRC Took Four Months to Return to Par
08:24 What Happens to STRD, STRK and STRE?
10:44 Why the Euro-Listed STRE Is a Challenge
12:51 Is Strategy Financializing Bitcoin?
16:06 How Institutions Are Damping Bitcoin’s Volatility
19:35 Mr. Edison, Mr. Rockefeller and Financialized Bitcoin
20:34 Will Strategy Issue Tokenized MSTR for U.S. Investors?
23:16 The Promise of Tokenization Is a Free Market
26:33 The Elephant in the Room: No U.S. Token Standard

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 MSTR Q3 2026 Earnings Call: Analyst Q&A first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mark Mason.

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Bitcoin Magazine

Mike Flaum: MSTR Performance “Massively” to the Upside During Next BTC Bull Run

Mike Flaum, CEO of Log Scale Investments, joins Bitcoin Magazine TV to talk Strategy’s Stretch, daily dividends, Strive’s SATS, Bitcoin-backed preferreds vs. Treasury bonds for retirees, mNAV and the four-year cycle. He explains why he separates risk from volatility and why he’s bullish long term.

Chapters:
00:00 Mike Flaum on Strategy and Bitcoin Treasury Companies
00:15 What Stretch Getting Back to Par Means for Strategy
01:18 How Issuing Stretch at $100 Restarts Bitcoin Buying
02:33 Strategy Shareholders Approve Daily Dividends
03:34 Why Daily Dividends Work Like Bitcoin Perpetual Futures
04:51 Opportunistic Traders vs. Long-Term Preferred Holders
07:08 Was Strive’s SATS Oversubscription Net New Money?
09:39 Bitcoin-Backed Preferreds vs. Treasury Bonds for Retirees
11:43 Why Strategy’s Stock Hasn’t Kept Pace With Its Bitcoin
13:41 Gross, EV and Net mNAV Explained
15:04 Digital Credit, Amplification and Share Buybacks
16:47 Strategy vs. Strive’s Capital Stack
18:48 Is the Bitcoin Four-Year Cycle Dead?
20:31 Why Bitcoin Hits an All-Time High Before the Halving
22:08 JPMorgan’s Bitcoin Forecast and Bitcoin’s Long-Term Retur

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 Mike Flaum: MSTR Performance “Massively” to the Upside During Next BTC Bull Run first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Patrick Green.

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Bitcoin Magazine

What to Know About the $6.3 Billion Binance Hack

The biggest crypto-related hack in history by dollar volume just hit Binance, with more than $6.3 billion in affected assets moving on-chain. About $3 billion was frozen through stablecoin operators, but $3.3 billion has not been recovered. Bitcoin Magazine TV breaks down what happened, what Binance has said, and why every day now feels like zero day for crypto security.

Chapters:
00:00 Binance Sees $6.3 Billion Move On-Chain in Record Hack
00:15 Binance Freezes $3 Billion as $3.3 Billion Stays Missing
00:45 Polymarket Hack Drains $2.7 Million From User Wallets
01:13 Why Every Day Is Zero Day for Crypto Security
02:45 What the Multi-Chain Hit Reveals About Binance Custody
03:21 TRM Labs Ties the Attack to North Korea’s TraderTraitor
04:49 How the Funds Flowed Through Stablecoins and Aave
05:52 Can Binance Cover the Losses? Solvency Questions
07:31 Why Stablecoin Freezes Aren’t Freedom Technology
09:07 Bitcoin Stays Resilient Through Hacks and Bear Markets

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 What to Know About the $6.3 Billion Binance Hack first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Patrick Green.

Bitcoin Magazine

Coinbase (COIN) Misses Revenue Estimates as Users Fall, Armstrong Sets Up New Share Sales

Coinbase had a mixed third quarter. Revenue came in at $1.20 billion, below the $1.233 billion analysts expected, according to company filings. Subscription and services revenue did better, reaching $570 million. The company is still heavily tied to trading activity, but its recurring income is growing.

Monthly Transacting Users fell to 7.4 million, down from 9.3 million a year earlier. During its earnings call, Coinbase blamed overall market conditions. Its share of crypto trading volume did rise to 10.7%, the fourth straight quarter of gains, which suggests it is winning business even as the broader market quiets. 

Adjusted EBITDA was $332.9 million, extending a run of 15 straight profitable quarters on that measure. The prediction markets business passed $200 million in annualized revenue, and Coinbase One hit a record number of subscribers.

Coinbase CEO preps share sales

Separately, filings reported on October 30 show CEO Brian Armstrong has set up a plan to sell up to 8.17 million Class A shares. He adopted the plan in August under SEC Rule 10b5-1, which lets executives schedule sales ahead of time. Sales could run from November 16 through October 2027, subject to stock price conditions. Co-founder Fred Ehrsam and President Emilie Choi have similar plans, bringing the total to about 13.6 million shares.

This is not new territory for Armstrong. In the past, VanEck analyst Matthew Sigel tracked about $545.7 million in sales over nine months, starting in April 2025. Armstrong has said these sales are part of his risk management, not a signal about the company.

Coinbase stock slumps nearly 15% 

Coinbase shares (COIN) fell about 15% today, but not necessarily due to this earnings report. 

Binance disclosed a security breach on October 29 that it estimates at $6.3 billion, making it the largest crypto theft on record. Around $3 billion in assets has been frozen so far, with industry partners assisting in the freezes. 

The hackers are allegedly linked to North Korea, though Binance has not attributed the attack to any group. The exchange says it has found no evidence of a leaked wallet private key.

Binance says it has $6.34 billion in reserves available to cover losses. Deposits were unaffected, and the company expects to resume withdrawals within 48 hours. Figures remain preliminary, and estimates vary slightly across outlets.

The market reacted quickly. Bitcoin fell roughly 4.5% to below $77,000. Shares of Strategy (MSTR) fell nearly 10% on the day. Strive (ASST) shares fell over 12% at times. Coinbase’s stock is down over 55% on the year.

This post Coinbase (COIN) Misses Revenue Estimates as Users Fall, Armstrong Sets Up New Share Sales first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

SEC Charges Two Companies in $130 Million Crypto Trading Scheme

The Securities and Exchange Commission charged two foreign-operated, Colorado-incorporated companies with running a crypto investment fraud that used false federal filings to raise more than $130 million from tens of thousands of retail investors.

The defendants are BG Wealth Sharing Ltd. and DSJ Exchange Pty Ltd. A complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California alleges that from at least October 2025 through June 2026, the companies induced investors in more than 40 states and several U.S. territories to join a “wealth-sharing program.” 

Participants were promised risk-free returns generated by so-called signals for crypto asset trading.

According to the complaint, BG Wealth claimed to be the world’s largest hedge fund, claimed registration with the SEC as an investment adviser, and said it partnered with a licensed and secure crypto trading platform, DSJ Exchange. 

The SEC says none of those claims were true. The complaint alleges the companies submitted false Form ADV and Form D filings to the SEC. Those filings were viewable on the agency’s website and shared with investors as evidence that the SEC had licensed or approved the firms.

Laura D’Allaird, chief of the SEC Enforcement Division’s Cyber and Emerging Technologies Unit, described the operation in a statement. 

SEC: Crypto scheme was ‘a Ponzi-like tactic’

“This alleged scheme was well-planned,” she said, citing social media, encrypted messaging channels, weekly live videoconferences and a mobile app used to engage investors. The complaint alleges the defendants displayed fake certificates bearing the SEC’s seal and made periodic payments to some investors, “a Ponzi-like tactic,” while misappropriating the remaining funds.

The SEC charged both companies with violating the antifraud provisions of the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.

It charged BG Wealth with violating Sections 204(a) and 207 of the Investment Advisers Act of 1940. The agency seeks permanent injunctions, disgorgement with prejudgment interest, and civil penalties against both companies, along with conduct-based injunctions against BG Wealth.

The Form ADV and Form D filings have been removed from the SEC website.

The SEC’s Office of Investor Education and Assistance has issued investor alerts warning that scammers are using exempt reporting adviser filings to create a false impression of legitimacy. The agency encourages investors to check the background of anyone offering or selling a crypto investment through Investor.gov.

The SEC said it received assistance from the Alberta Securities Commission, the Hawaii Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, the Texas State Securities Board, the Utah Division of Securities, the Washington State Department of Financial Institutions, the Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions, and other authorities.

This post SEC Charges Two Companies in $130 Million Crypto Trading Scheme first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

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A MiCA authorisation is the permission to offer crypto services in the European Union, and two public directories let you check whether your provider holds one: the company database of the German supervisor BaFin and the MiCA register of the European Securities and Markets Authority, ESMA. The catch is that the two do not show the same thing. Anyone who looks only at BaFin will not find the big international exchanges there at all, and it is easy to draw the wrong conclusion from that.

A count of our own from October 28, 2026 shows how large the difference is. The BaFin company database lists exactly 98 entries in the category "crypto-asset service providers", with data as of October 27. Coinbase, Kraken, Binance and Crypto.com appear in none of them. This piece sets out how the two registers work together, what sits in which, and how to spot an entry that describes no authorisation at all.

What a MiCA authorisation under Regulation 2023/1114 covers

MiCA stands for "Markets in Crypto-Assets" and is Regulation (EU) 2023/1114. It applies directly in every member state and requires official authorisation for crypto services. A firm that receives one is a crypto-asset service provider, or CASP.

A crypto-asset service is an umbrella term for ten clearly delimited activities. They include the custody of crypto-assets for clients, the operation of a trading platform, the exchange of crypto-assets for euros or for other crypto-assets, the execution of orders, placement, the reception and transmission of orders, advice, portfolio management and transfer services. An authorisation always names which of these activities it covers.

That is the first point where a quick check goes wrong: an authorisation is never blanket. A provider authorised for custody is not thereby allowed to run a trading platform. So when you look in the register, read not only whether a name appears but also which services are recorded against it.

In Germany the transitional regime ended on December 31, 2025

Firms that already worked with crypto-assets under German law before MiCA had a grace period. The regulation allowed member states up to eighteen months for this. Germany did not use the full span: under section 50(2)(3) of the Crypto Markets Supervision Act, the permission deemed to continue lapsed "at the latest at the end of December 31, 2025".

For investors that means no legacy licence has been in circulation in Germany since the start of 2026 that a provider could invoke. Anyone providing crypto services there today needs a MiCA authorisation, either from Germany or from another member state. A provider advertising a "BaFin registration" from 2021 or a "crypto custody licence under the Banking Act" is describing a legal position that has expired.

The same law also explains why so many banks sit among the German authorisations. Section 50(3) opens a simplified procedure to institutions holding a permission under section 32 of the Banking Act for authorisation to offer crypto-asset services. A savings bank or cooperative bank already under banking supervision did not have to start from scratch.

The BaFin database lists 98 crypto-asset service providers, 64 of them banks

BaFin states itself where it makes a granted authorisation public: in the Federal Gazette, in its own company database and in ESMA's interim MiCAR register. The database is freely accessible to anyone and has a dedicated option for crypto in the "category" field.

The count of October 28, 2026 across that category yields 98 companies. What else they are is the revealing part, because the database names every role attached to each entry:

• 64 are also credit institutions, among them Commerzbank, Deutsche Bank, DekaBank, DZ Bank, Baader Bank, flatexDEGIRO, N26 Bank, Trade Republic Bank, Scalable Capital Bank and a long line of cooperative banks.
• 24 are investment firms, such as EUWAX AG, Lang & Schwarz TradeCenter AG or several asset managers.
• 10 are additionally crypto custodians, among them Boerse Stuttgart Digital Custody, BitGo Europe, Bullish Europe and Crypto Finance (Germany).
• Exactly 2 carry only the crypto-asset service provider role and nothing else: the Baden-Württemberg stock exchange and Bitpanda Asset Management GmbH.

For comparison: the older "crypto custodian" category under German banking law counts 15 entries, the "crypto securities register keeper" category eight. Those are different permissions with a different purpose, and they are not a MiCA authorisation.

Why Coinbase, Kraken and Binance are missing from the BaFin database

A name search in the same database on October 28, 2026 returns zero hits for Coinbase, Kraken, Binance and Crypto.com. That does not mean these exchanges operate there without permission. It means their authorisation does not come from Germany.

The regulation has its own mechanism for this. Article 65 MiCA governs the cross-border provision of services: a firm authorised in one member state may operate in all the others after prior notification. The industry calls that notification passporting, and BaFin lists such companies in a different category, namely under "cross-border service providers" with the tag "Art. 65 MiCA-R". Bitvavo B.V., Bitpanda GmbH and Bybit EU GmbH are among those listed there on October 28.

So if your provider is missing from the "crypto-asset service providers" category, the check simply moves on. The search continues in the European register.

The ESMA register under Article 109 MiCA lists every authorisation in the EU

The European Securities and Markets Authority keeps a public register under Article 109 MiCA. One point matters for understanding it: ESMA authorises nobody. Authorisation always comes from the national supervisor of the home state, so BaFin in Germany, the AFM in the Netherlands, the central bank in Ireland. ESMA collects those notifications and publishes them in one place.

As long as ESMA has not yet moved the register into its own systems, it appears as an interim register of five tables, republished weekly. The five cover different things: published white papers, issuers of asset-referenced tokens, issuers of e-money tokens, the authorised crypto-asset service providers, and a list of non-compliant companies. For the question "is my exchange authorised?", the fourth table is the right one, reachable via the ESMA MiCA page.

The number of service providers listed there grows week by week. Various readings of the register arrived at 364 to 384 authorised providers at the end of October 2026, depending on the cut-off date each table carried. There is no round figure, then, and that is not a flaw in the source but a consequence of the weekly rhythm. Germany regularly leads on the number of authorisations, followed by France and the Netherlands.

How to check a provider's authorisation yourself in two minutes

The shortest path runs through both registers, in this order:

1. Get the exact company name. It is in the provider's imprint or terms of use, never in the app's brand name. Behind "Bitvavo" sits Bitvavo B.V., behind "Bitpanda" one of several companies depending on the service. Without the legal name you will find nothing in any register.
2. Look in the BaFin database. Enter the company name there and leave the category on "all companies". If the name appears, the result line shows the roles: "crypto-asset service provider" means a German MiCA authorisation, "cross-border service providers (Art. 65 MiCA-R)" means an authorisation from another member state.
3. Cross-check in the ESMA register. Search for the same name in the table of crypto-asset service providers. The row names the home state, the competent authority, the date of authorisation and the list of permitted services. That list is exactly what decides whether the service you want to use is covered.

If you find the name in neither directory, there are three sober explanations, and you usually get further without asking anyone. The name is misspelled or is only a brand. Or the authorisation is recent and not yet recorded, since days can pass between an authority's decision and the entry in the weekly register. Or there is no authorisation.

Stablecoins sit in different tables from exchanges

A different logic applies to stablecoins, and it leads to mix-ups time and again. MiCA knows two kinds of such token: e-money tokens, which reference a single official currency, and asset-referenced tokens, which lean on something else, such as a basket of currencies or a precious metal. Both need an authorised issuer and a published white paper, and both have their own table in the interim register.

The consequence is that a token can be tradable on an authorised exchange without having an authorised issuer itself. That is precisely the case now hitting the tokenised gold PAXG: as we reported on October 28, 2026, the token lacks MiCA authorisation, which is why Coinbase is stopping trading for clients in the European Economic Area as of October 30. If you want to know which issuers have cleared the bar, our analysis of the MiCA register of stablecoin issuers has the state of play.

With a stablecoin, therefore, check two things separately: the issuer of the token and the venue you buy it on. For choosing among the euro and dollar tokens, an overview of the stablecoins helps.

ESMA's warning list names firms operating without authorisation

The fifth table of the interim register is the one least written about, and for investors the most practical. It holds companies that a national supervisor has reported as offering crypto services in the EU without being authorised to do so. Various readings counted between 173 and 178 entries there at the end of October 2026, again depending on the cut-off date of each table.

An entry there is not a court ruling. It is a notice from a supervisory authority, and it is considerably more solid than any rating on a comparison site. If a provider where you hold money turns up in that table, that is the moment to think about a withdrawal, and to do so before payment service providers or banks stop transfers to that recipient.

The warning list also explains why some platforms are no longer reachable from Germany or operate only with restrictions. One example from our own coverage is the situation at Hyperliquid without MiCA authorisation, where the missing permission feeds straight through to access.

Four entries that look like an authorisation and are not

Reading the registers, you meet terms that sound regulatory and mean something else. The four most common:

• Representative office. A representative office may advertise and maintain contacts but conclude no business. The BaFin database on October 28, 2026 lists eToro Germany GmbH as the representative office of eToro (Europe) Limited, and that is a role, not a permission.
• Crypto custodian under German banking law. This permission existed before MiCA and covers custody, not trading. It is recorded in a category of its own with 15 entries, and the entry does not replace a MiCA authorisation.
• Crypto securities register keeper. This eighth category concerns electronic securities under German law and has nothing to do with bitcoin or ether.
• A published white paper. A white paper in the register shows that an issuer has met its disclosure duty. It is no examination of the business model, and certainly no authorisation of the issuing firm.

For anyone who wants to go deeper into the structure of the register: our analysis of the MiCA register showed how small the share of genuine trading platforms is among all authorisations. The duties that sit behind a licence are summarised in our overview of the MiCA licence obligations for crypto companies.

What the authorisation delivers and where its protection ends

A MiCA authorisation obliges the provider to hold own funds, to separate client money from its own assets, to run a complaints desk and to report to the supervisor. That is a real difference from a provider without permission, and in a dispute it gives you a competent authority.

What the authorisation does not deliver matters just as much. No price and no return is assured. Nor does the permission substitute for deposit insurance, since crypto-assets do not fall under the protection for bank balances. And it does not prevent insolvency: if an authorised provider fails, the quality of the asset separation decides what comes back from your holdings. Self-custody therefore remains the alternative for larger holdings, the one that avoids counterparty risk altogether.

One last point on timing: an authorisation can be withdrawn, and providers also give up services voluntarily. An entry you saw in the spring proves nothing for today. Before a larger deposit, another look at the register is worth it; it costs two minutes.

MiCA authorisation: BaFin lists 98 providers, ESMA all the rest

Together the two registers answer the question reliably; on their own each misleads. This is how you get to a solid answer:

1. Take the company name from the imprint and search the BaFin database. The role line tells you at once whether the authorisation comes from Germany, whether the provider reaches in from another member state via Article 65 MiCA, or whether nothing is recorded at all. A selection sorted by authorisation is in the comparison of regulated crypto exchanges.
2. Match the permitted services in the ESMA register. Custody, trading platform and exchange are three different permissions. Only what stands there is covered. Which exchanges offer which services is shown by the overview of crypto exchanges.
3. With stablecoins, check the issuer separately and glance at the warning list. A token without an authorised issuer disappears from European trading sooner or later, as the PAXG case at the end of October 2026 shows. For larger holdings, self-custody remains the route that makes you independent of a provider: see the comparison of hardware wallets.

(As of October 28, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

Here is what is confirmed: Binance opened the first withdrawal phase after the October 29 attack on Sunday morning, and the Dogecoin network is one of the 15 networks in that phase. The reserve snapshot dated October 31 lists ten balances as fully backed, and Dogecoin is not one of them. Our assessment follows further down: for DOGE holders the reopened withdrawal route weighs more than the missing backing line, because the way out of the exchange is what makes a decision possible at all.

The price itself has barely moved. Dogecoin traded at $0.0758 on Sunday morning, up 1.20 percent over 24 hours on CoinGecko data, as of November 1 at 9.41am CET. Market capitalisation stands at $11.86bn, which ranks DOGE 12th. Bitcoin trades at $78,060 over the same period and is up 1.07 percent, so the market is exhaling evenly without any single coin standing out.

Binance reopening phase one: 15 networks inside a three-hour window

Three days after the largest theft a crypto exchange has suffered, withdrawals are running again. In a notice dated November 1 at 4.08am UTC, Binance announced the first phase for Sunday between 6.00am and 9.00am UTC. The release does not come all at once but network by network: each pairing of asset and network passes its own security and readiness tests before it opens. Deposits worked normally throughout, the exchange says. How the timetable came about and what was promised beforehand is set out in our overview of the first withdrawal phase.

The 15 networks in the first phase are, as reported by crypto.news, the Bitcoin network, Ethereum, the BNB Smart Chain, Tron, Solana, the XRP Ledger, Zcash, Dogecoin, Polygon, the Avalanche C-Chain, Arbitrum, Base, Optimism, TON and Sui. Binance ordered them by last week's demand. A network on the list, however, does not mean every route inside it opened at the same minute.

By late Sunday morning in Europe, the exchange's network status showed bitcoin over the Bitcoin network, ether over Ethereum, and USDT, USDC and BNB over Ethereum and the BNB Smart Chain as withdrawable again. Further networks from the first phase follow step by step. To see where a DOGE route stands, check the withdrawal dialogue on the exchange itself rather than a press release.

The Dogecoin network is on the list, DOGE is missing from the backed balances

This is the line that goes under in most reports. Alongside the reopening, Binance is filling the hole from its own funds. By the evening of October 30 about 80 percent of the stolen amount had been replaced, according to the exchange, 90 percent on October 31 and 95 percent on November 1. The stolen sum stands at roughly $6.3bn, and TRM Labs analysis traces it to the North Korean group TraderTraitor.

The October 31 reserve snapshot shows ten balances as fully backed: bitcoin, ether, USDT, BNB, Solana, USDC, XRP, USD1, RLUSD and Zcash. Dogecoin is not among them. The remaining five percent of the affected assets consist, on the same account, of less liquid tokens outside those ten. DOGE therefore falls into the group for which no explicit backing pledge exists so far, even though the coin ranks 12th by market capitalisation.

That sounds sharper than it is meant, and it is still a difference. An absent mention is no proof of a hole. The omission only means that Binance has not yet produced a figure for this balance that a customer could point to. For bitcoin or XRP such a figure exists. For DOGE it does not.

Proof of reserves: the October 31 snapshot and the gap in it

A proof of reserves is an exchange's evidence that on a fixed date it holds at least as many coins as its customers have deposited with it. It has two halves: the documented holdings on the exchange's addresses, and the sum of customer balances those holdings are measured against. Only together do the two say anything, and even then only for the cut-off date.

Binance has announced the full proof, with a zero-knowledge attestation, for Tuesday, November 3. Until then the October 31 snapshot is the only reading available. What such a report can show and what it structurally cannot is broken down in our piece on the announced proof of reserves. For DOGE holders that means the figure against which a pledge could be recalculated arrives on Tuesday at the earliest.

Why a withdrawal freeze reaches the DOGE price through turnover

The path from an exchange outage to the price rarely runs through panic selling. It runs through turnover. Someone who cannot withdraw trades more cautiously, because every position sits for the time being inside a system nobody is leaving. Market makers in that situation quote smaller sizes at wider spreads, since they can no longer hedge their risk freely between venues. The order book thins out, and a thin order book moves further on the same order size.

That effect was measurable on Saturday. Our piece on the thinnest trading day of the month showed that by Saturday evening Dogecoin worth $0.77m changed hands on Kraken across 2,582 trades, against $3.96m and 7,986 trades in the October average. The price stood at $0.0758 then, and the $0.0750 level held.

Since then nothing much has changed in the price, but the setting has. Dogecoin trades today at the same $0.0758, the $0.0750 level is still holding, and 24-hour volume across all tracked venues stands at $265m. The open withdrawal route is the new element. Whether it brings turnover back can only be read off the days after the release, not off the announcement itself.

Sunday's chart: $0.0758 above the 30-day low of $0.075137

The daily range runs from $0.074962 to $0.076166, a span of 1.61 percent between low and high. Narrow, though a little wider than Saturday. The lower boundary is the more interesting one: the low of the past 30 days sits at $0.075137 and dates from October 30, the day after the attack. The current price is just 0.9 percent above it.

On the upside the nearest reasoned level is the daily high at $0.076166, and above that the area around $0.0790, where Dogecoin found a footing several times between October 18 and October 23. On the downside the monthly low comes first. If it breaks, there is no zone with meaningful trading over the past 30 days until the area around $0.0695.

To place the monthly balance: Dogecoin stood at $0.094506 on October 1 and at $0.07588 on October 31. Across the month that works out at a loss of 19.7 percent. October counts as a traditionally strong month in crypto; in 2026 it was DOGE's weakest since the spring.

Since November 1, 2025: from $0.1864 to $0.0758

A look across twelve months places the situation better than any daily range. On November 1, 2025 a DOGE cost $0.1864 and market capitalisation stood at $28.25bn. Today the figures are $0.0758 and $11.86bn. The price has lost 59 percent in a year, the market capitalisation 58 percent.

Bitcoin is down 29 percent over the same stretch. Dogecoin has therefore given up roughly twice as much as the benchmark, which fits the usual pattern: coins with smaller capitalisation and more sentiment-driven demand swing harder in both directions. Supply does not explain the decline. Circulation stands at 156.54 billion DOGE and grows through the fixed issuance by about five billion units a year, so by a good three percent. The rest is demand.

Exchange balance and self-custody: the difference when it matters

The past three days have demonstrated the difference between the two forms of custody in practice. Holding DOGE on an exchange means owning a claim against that company, not a coin. In normal times the claim is as good as a coin, and in an outage it is exactly as mobile as the exchange lets it be. Holding the coins in your own wallet means owning the private key and being able to send at any time, whatever state an exchange is in.

Set against that is an honest price. Self-custody shifts the risk from the company to your own diligence: a lost seed phrase is final, and so is a wrongly confirmed transfer. Which way works depends on the amount and on how often you trade. Weekly trading needs an exchange balance; a position held for months gains little on an exchange. The devices and their costs are in the hardware wallet comparison, the venues and their withdrawal fees in the exchange comparison.

One practical point on the withdrawal itself: a DOGE withdrawal runs over the Dogecoin network and carries a fixed network fee there, which an exchange can mark up. On small amounts that fee eats a noticeable share. Partial withdrawals in several steps therefore cost more than one transfer. Check the receiving address character by character at the start and the end before sending, and on larger amounts a test transfer of a small sum is worth it.

Our assessment: the open route weighs more than the missing backing line

In this newsroom's view the reopening is the more important of the two pieces of news for DOGE holders, even if the absent backing pledge sounds more uncomfortable. The mechanics argue for it: while no withdrawal was possible, a holder could react to any information only by trading or not trading inside the exchange. With an open route, moving into self-custody stands alongside those options again. The replacement figures argue for it too, having risen from 80 to 90 and then 95 percent, as does the fact that the exchange has put a date on the full proof.

Against it stands the point that DOGE remains without a backing figure of its own until Tuesday, and that the first hours of a release say little about how it holds up under load. A withdrawal route that works in light traffic is not yet a withdrawal route that carries a rush. All that is documented so far is that the first networks have opened. This assessment judges the situation and is not a recommendation to buy or sell; with crypto assets a total loss is possible.

Binance reopening: without a backing figure DOGE keeps a residual risk

1. Test your own withdrawal route. Before deciding on large amounts, send a small DOGE transfer to your own address and wait for it to land. What the individual venues charge for that is in the comparison of crypto exchanges.
2. Match the custody form to the holding period. Positions meant to sit for months do not belong in an exchange balance. Which devices are candidates and what they cost is shown by the hardware wallet comparison.
3. Keep November 3 in the calendar. That is the day Binance intends to present the full proof of reserves. Only then can a DOGE figure be recalculated rather than believed, and until then the October 31 snapshot applies. For picking a second venue, the exchange comparison helps.

(As of November 1, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

Further reporting on the resumption of withdrawals and on the scale of the loss can be found at The Standard.

Buying USDT in the EU is no longer possible on any of the seven major platforms we checked on 1 November 2026. Bitpanda, Kraken, Coinbase, Bitvavo, OKX, Bybit EU and Trade Republic no longer sell Tether's stablecoin to customers in the European Economic Area. The reason is the EU's MiCA regulation: USDT has no authorisation as an e-money token, and since 8 October 2026 the European securities regulator ESMA has expected licensed providers to stop all services around such tokens, by 8 January 2027 at the latest. Holding USDT remains legal. If you want a dollar stablecoin in the EU, the licensed choice is USDC; if you think in euros, it is EURC. This guide shows what each platform still allows, what buying and transferring cost, and which route to USDT remains open.

Note: some links in this guide are affiliate links and are marked as advertisements. If you open an account through them, CryptoTicker receives a commission. The price stays the same for you.

Key points at a glance

• No purchase at EU platforms: none of the seven platforms we checked lets customers in the EEA buy USDT as of 1 November 2026.
• ESMA deadline: opinion of 8 October 2026, clean-up by 8 January 2027 at the latest. After that, only time-limited residual services such as selling and withdrawing remain.
• Holding stays legal: the opinion is addressed to providers, not to private individuals.
• Alternative USDC: licensed e-money token, classified on 14 October 2026 as the EU's first "significant" one. Market cap $71.7 billion, USDT $179.9 billion (CoinMarketCap, 1 November 2026).
• Spread measured: USDC against the euro 0.011% at Kraken, Coinbase and Bybit EU, 0.022% at Bitvavo.
• Network fee measured: a USDT transfer on Tron burns 6.43 TRX, about $1.95, without staked energy. On Ethereum it cost $0.01 to $0.15 on average.

How to buy USDT on 1 November 2026: seven platforms checked

None of the platforms we checked will sell you USDT today. Most of them switched off long before the ESMA deadline, Bitvavo as early as January 2025.

For existing balances, the routes differ: at Kraken you can still withdraw USDT, at OKX you can convert it into USDC, and at Coinbase and Bitvavo your balance has long been USDC. Which exchanges hold a MiCA licence is covered in our comparison of regulated crypto exchanges. Binance does not belong in this list: it is not in ESMA's MiCA register and paused withdrawals after the hack of 29 October 2026. Licensed exchanges are listed in our guide to Binance alternatives.

Why you can no longer buy USDT in the EU: the ESMA opinion

Tether has no authorisation for USDT as an e-money token in the EU. ESMA concludes that licensed providers should no longer offer any services around this token, from trading to custody.

The core sentence of the ESMA opinion of 8 October 2026 is paragraph 12: crypto-asset service providers "should not provide crypto-asset services" in relation to stablecoins that do not comply with MiCA. Paragraph 21 lists trading, exchange, order execution, advice, transfers, custody and portfolio management. Under paragraph 19, warnings to clients are not enough.

Under paragraph 24, residual services for existing holdings remain allowed: selling, conversion, withdrawal, transfer and safekeeping, but no new purchases. Under paragraph 27, national supervisors should require the clean-up "as soon as possible" and no later than three months after publication, which is 8 January 2027. The document contains no ban for private individuals. More on this is in our article on the ESMA stablecoin deadline, and what Tether actually is in What is Tether (USDT)?

Buy Tether despite MiCA: the route via USDC in five steps

Technically, you can still get USDT: you buy USDC on a licensed exchange, withdraw it to your own wallet and swap it there on a decentralised exchange. This is legal, but no supervisor protects you along the way. Check first whether you really need USDT: as a dollar stablecoin in your account, USDC does the job, and USDT only makes sense if a recipient outside the EU asks for exactly this token.

1. Buy USDC on a MiCA exchange: open an account, verify your ID, deposit euros by SEPA and buy USDC.
2. Set up your own wallet: choose a wallet for the network you need and write the recovery phrase down on paper. Apps are compared in our software wallet comparison.
3. Choose the network and test first: withdraw USDC on the network your wallet and the recipient use, starting with a small amount. You need the network's own coin for fees, on Ethereum some ether.
4. Swap on a decentralised exchange: according to its overview of pool fees, Uniswap usually charges 0.01% to 1% depending on the pool, plus the network fee. Check the minimum amount you receive before confirming, and only open the app via its official address.
5. Keep records: swapping USDC for USDT is a disposal for tax purposes in many countries. Note the date, amount and price.

On this route there is no customer service and no chargeback, and a wrong network or a fake website costs you the balance. Exchanges without an EU licence often still list USDT, but they are not subject to European supervision.

For the first step, the four MiCA exchanges from our comparison are an option. Advertisement, for readers in the EU: Go to Bitpanda, Advertisement: Go to Kraken, Advertisement: Go to Coinbase. Bitvavo is available at the Bitvavo website. Our assessment is in the reviews of Bitpanda and Kraken.

Fees and spread when buying USDT via USDC

The expensive part is not the spread but the exchange fee. We measured the gap between the buy and sell price of USDC against the euro in the order books on 1 November 2026 in the early hours.

Fees from our comparison of regulated crypto exchanges, as of October 2026.

The exchange rate comes on top. On 1 November 2026, one USDC cost 0.8963 euros at Kraken, so 1,000 euros bought about 1,116 USDC before fees. If the euro rises by 5% against the dollar, a balance worth 1,000 euros loses about 48 euros, even though the token keeps its dollar peg.

Withdrawing USDT: which network to choose and what a transfer costs

USDT runs on more than ten blockchains, and according to Tether's transparency page the largest amounts sit on Tron and Ethereum. What matters is that sender and recipient use the same network, otherwise the funds may be lost. We measured the costs on real transfers during the night of 1 November 2026, on 15 transfers on Tron and twice 25 on Ethereum.

Prices: TRX $0.3038, ether $2,253 (CoinMarketCap, 1 November 2026).

On Tron, only one of 15 senders actually paid TRX, the others had staked or rented energy. On Ethereum, the average cost rose more than tenfold within seven minutes, because it moves with network load. The exchange also charges its own withdrawal fee, shown in the withdrawal form. Do not send USDT to an account at an EU exchange: Coinbase no longer credits such deposits, Kraken advises against them and OKX only converts them into USDC.

USDC and EURC: the MiCA-compliant alternatives to USDT

USDC is the licensed dollar stablecoin in the EU, EURC its euro counterpart. Circle issues both through Circle Internet Financial Europe SAS in France as e-money tokens under MiCA. All major EU exchanges list USDC, and EURC is available at Kraken, Bitvavo and Bybit EU, among others.

The European Banking Authority classified USDC on 14 October 2026 as the EU's first significant e-money token, out of 45 notified, and will supervise its reserve and own funds directly from 12 November 2026; details in USDC under EBA supervision. The key difference to USDT is in Article 49 of the MiCA regulation: holders of a licensed e-money token can redeem it with the issuer at any time, at par value and free of charge. In the EU, USDT holders have no such claim.

If you think in euros, EURC removes the currency risk. With a market value of about $450 million, however, the token is small, and the spread shows it: on 1 November 2026 it was 0.02% at Bybit EU, 0.05% at Kraken and 0.17% at Bitvavo. Other tokens are compared in our stablecoin list, and the choice between the two dollar tokens in USDT or USDC.

Risks of buying USDT: freezes by Tether and the dollar peg

USDT carries two risks in every wallet: Tether can block addresses, and the dollar peg is a promise made by the issuer.

The USDT contract contains a blocklist. After the Binance hack of 29 October 2026, Tether froze more than 1.567 billion USDT, according to CEO Paolo Ardoino. The addresses hit are those that investigators link to theft or sanctions; how this works technically is shown in USDT frozen. The peg held on 1 November 2026 at $0.9988 according to CoinMarketCap. USDT is backed by reserves that Tether reports itself; there is no state guarantee or deposit insurance. In its early years, the token fell as low as $0.57, according to CoinGecko.

USDT and tax: every swap counts

In Germany, swapping one crypto asset for another counts as a disposal under Section 23 of the Income Tax Act, including a swap from USDC into USDT. A gain is taxable if the purchase was less than a year ago and the year's gains reach the 1,000-euro exemption limit. With stablecoins, the gain usually comes from the euro-dollar exchange rate, and the one-year period starts again for every newly received token.

A draft bill dated 30 September 2026 would scrap the one-year rule for newly bought crypto; the cabinet did not adopt it on 14 October 2026. What a forced stablecoin conversion means for tax is explained in Coinbase converts USDT into USDC, and tools that track every swap are compared in our crypto tax software comparison. Rules differ by country, and this guide is not tax advice.

USDT after 8 January 2027: what applies then

From 8 January 2027, licensed providers in the EU should only wind down USDT: selling, conversion, withdrawal, transfer and safekeeping of existing holdings, time-limited and under close supervision. Holding, receiving and sending USDT in your own wallet remain legal. If you hold USDT there and later want euros, you need an extra step, such as swapping into USDC on a decentralised exchange and then selling on a licensed exchange.

Our assessment: buying USDT hardly pays off for EU investors

For investors in the EU, USDC is the obvious dollar stablecoin: the same dollar peg, a legal right to redemption at par and direct EBA supervision from 12 November 2026. You can buy it on every major EU exchange at a spread of 0.011% to 0.022%.

USDT's strength lies outside Europe: at a market value of $179.9 billion, it is two and a half times the size of USDC. If you need it for a payment or a trading venue outside the EU, you can get it via your own wallet and carry the risk yourself. If you think in euros, consider EURC or simply euros in a bank account, where deposit insurance applies.

Cryptocurrency prices are highly volatile, and a total loss is possible. This guide is not investment advice.

Form 8-K of October 26: what Datavault AI told the US securities regulator

Nasdaq-listed Datavault AI Inc. filed a Form 8-K with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on October 26, 2026, reporting an event of October 20, 2026. The core of the filing: in June 2026 the company requested the withdrawal of Bitcoin from a wallet held at Biconomy Pte. Ltd., based in Singapore, to an external account. As of the date of the report, that withdrawal had not been completed according to the company. The filing states that the company was “unable to complete the withdrawal”.

The filing names no reason why the withdrawal did not come about. Neither does it state who is responsible. No public statement from Biconomy on the matter is available. Anyone reading this case therefore reads only one thing to begin with: a company's account of its own situation, given in a mandatory document to the securities regulator.

For investors in Germany the case is instructive all the same, whatever its outcome. It demonstrates a distinction that blurs in everyday use at every trading platform: the distinction between a figure shown in an account and a coin position someone actually controls. Bitcoin was quoted at $80,440, or 72,249 euros, on Wednesday afternoon (CoinGecko).

Off-chain credit: why a figure in an account is not Bitcoin on the blockchain

The word that matters in the document is "off-chain". According to the 8-K, the Bitcoin were credited to the account “through an off-chain transfer”, so by a transfer that took place outside the blockchain. Technically that means there was no transaction in the Bitcoin network leading from one address to another. There was an entry in a provider's internal database.

An off-chain transfer is any rebooking between two accounts at the same provider that its own bookkeeping system handles instead of sending it to the blockchain. That is nothing unusual and nothing wrong in itself: every large trading platform books purchases and sales between its customers this way, because it is faster and cheaper than a network transaction. The difference becomes visible only at the moment someone wants to pull the coins out.

A credit, after all, establishes a claim against the provider. A Bitcoin address to which only the holder has the private key establishes control. As long as everything runs smoothly, both states feel the same, because the app displays the same figure either way. Only the payout separates them.

The arithmetic of the case: from 1,328.43 via 1,309.04 to around 818 Bitcoin

According to the 8-K, the process begins on September 25, 2025. On that day Datavault AI concluded a securities purchase agreement with Scilex Holding, which is also listed. Scilex undertook to acquire 15,000,000 shares and a pre-funded warrant over 263,914,094 shares. The consideration came to $150 million, payable in Bitcoin, set at a price of $112,915.52 per Bitcoin. That works out at around 1,328.43 Bitcoin.

Less than that was then credited. On September 26, 2025 and on November 25, 2025, according to the report, Scilex booked 1,309.04 Bitcoin to the wallet held at Biconomy, by off-chain transfer. The document explains the difference of 19.39 Bitcoin with cash advances that Scilex had granted the company between signing and final closing.

Between September 26, 2025 and January 30, 2026, Datavault AI sold 491.431 Bitcoin of that back to Scilex, for around $40.5 million in cash. That buy-back also ran off-chain, according to the report. Deducting it from the credited holding leaves 817.609 Bitcoin.

That figure is not undisputed. The quarterly filing as at March 31, 2026 showed 837 Bitcoin on the balance sheet, according to the industry outlet TFTC. The gap of around 19 Bitcoin between the two statements is not resolved in the publicly available documents. Only a range is therefore reliable: this concerns roughly 818 to 837 Bitcoin. At the price of October 28, 2026 that corresponds to a value of around $66 million to $67 million.

June 2026: the requested withdrawal has still not been completed

In June 2026 the company wanted to move the holding. According to the 8-K, it applied to withdraw Bitcoin from the wallet held at Biconomy to an external account. Four months later, at the date of the report, that process had by its own account still not been completed.

The document says no more about it. It names neither a justification from the provider, nor a date by which a resolution might be expected, nor the current state of any clarification. That gap belongs to the news and is not filled in here: what passed between the two sides does not emerge from the public documents.

The documented part suffices for the assessment. Between the first credit in September 2025 and the withdrawal attempt in June 2026 lie around nine months in which the holding stood in the books as an asset. On the record, it was not tested during that time whether it could also be pulled out.

Four sets of accounts withdrawn: an asset turns into a receivable

The accounting consequence is in the same document. On October 20, 2026 the audit committee of the board and management concluded that four sets of financial statements should no longer be relied upon: the quarterly report for the third quarter of 2025 (filed November 14, 2025), the 2025 annual accounts (March 18, 2026), the quarterly report as at March 31, 2026 (May 15, 2026) and the quarterly report as at June 30, 2026 (August 19, 2026).

The reason is a question of attribution. On renewed review, the company concluded that the Bitcoin from the Scilex transaction did not meet the conditions for recognition as its own digital asset. Instead of an asset, the transaction is now booked as a receivable from the issue of its own shares, in technical terms a subscription receivable, and reported as a reduction of equity. For this the document refers to ASC 505-10-45-2 and to Rule 5-02.29 of Regulation S-X.

Subscription receivable: what the reclassification triggers on the balance sheet

A receivable from a share issue is the amount a buyer still owes for newly issued shares. It does not sit on the asset side next to the bank balance; it reduces equity for as long as it is outstanding. In economic terms that means the company has issued shares and has so far received no consideration it can dispose of.

The report quantifies the expected corrections for each reporting date individually. Total assets accordingly fall by $8.1 million as at September 30, 2025, by $92.2 million as at December 31, 2025, by $57.1 million as at March 31, 2026 and by $49.0 million as at June 30, 2026. The company expressly describes this determination as preliminary and unaudited; it could still change in the course of the restatement.

The share reacted sharply. For October 27, 2026, industry outlets report a price decline; the figures range from just under 40 to around 50 percent in a single trading day. That range stands here because the sources differ.

Counterparty risk: the difference between possession and a claim

Counterparty risk denotes the danger that the contractual partner fails to meet its obligation. Anyone leaving coins on a trading platform always bears that risk, however reliably the provider operates. The figure in the account is a claim against the company, and a claim is worth only as much as it can be enforced.

The phrase "not your keys, not your coins" means precisely this connection. It has become a cliché in the scene, yet it describes a tangible legal difference: with self-custody the private key lies with the holder, and nobody else can move the coins. With custody by a service provider the key lies there, and any movement depends on the provider executing it.

This is no argument against trading platforms. Without them hardly anyone would get hold of Bitcoin at all, and self-custody brings its own risks, foremost the irretrievable loss of the key. It is an argument for separating the two deliberately: the part that gets traded, and the part that stays put.

MiCA and the supervisor: which duties apply to authorised providers in the EU

For providers addressing customers in the European Union, the Regulation on Markets in Crypto-Assets, MiCA for short, has applied since 2024. It requires authorisation as a crypto-asset service provider and attaches duties to that which bear precisely on the point at issue in this case.

Two points are central here. First, the segregation of customer holdings from the provider's own assets: customer crypto-assets are to be held separately so that they do not fall into the estate if the company gets into difficulty. Second, the custody and administration duties together with liability for the loss of customer crypto-assets. Both presuppose that there is a supervised body a customer can turn to at all.

A provider without EU authorisation is not automatically disreputable. It does stand outside this framework, however, and that changes the situation when something goes wrong. Anyone wanting to check which platforms hold the authorisation will find the current state in the national supervisor's register and in the ESMA register.

The ESMA register lists the authorised providers of all EU states

Authorisation is granted by the national supervisory authority, and the European Securities and Markets Authority, ESMA, brings together the registers of providers authorised under MiCA. A brand appearing in neither directory has no authorisation to show for the EU market. That check costs a few minutes and is more robust than any advertising promise on a landing page.

Proof of reserves: what a reserve attestation shows and what it leaves open

Since 2022 quite a few trading platforms have published a reserve attestation, known as proof of reserves. In it the provider demonstrates that it controls coins to a certain amount, usually via signed addresses or a third-party review, and sets the total of customer balances against that.

That is more than nothing, and it is less than the name promises. A reserve attestation is a snapshot at a reporting date. It shows holdings, but without an equivalent review of liabilities it says little about whether higher claims stand against those holdings. And it says nothing about whether an individual payout will actually be executed in case of doubt.

For precisely that reason, no attestation of this kind replaces the simplest test there is: actually withdrawing a small amount once and seeing whether it arrives. That test costs a network fee and delivers the only piece of information that counts when it matters.

Bitcoin at $80,440: what changes for holders

This case changes nothing about the price. Bitcoin stood at $80,440 on Wednesday afternoon and was therefore practically unchanged against the previous day (CoinGecko). Datavault AI is a single company, and the holding concerned, around 818 to 837 Bitcoin, amounts to a vanishing share of the supply.

What does change is the urgency of a question many portfolios never face: is the holding sitting where it ought to sit? Anyone wanting to hold Bitcoin over years has different requirements from someone trading weekly. For the long-term part, self-custody via a dedicated device whose key never leaves it makes the case.

Holding period and threshold: why a move into your own wallet is no sale

One point regularly causes hesitation in Germany: the worry that moving from the platform into your own wallet triggers tax. A transfer between two wallets of the same holder is no disposal, because no change of owner takes place. The holding period under Section 23 of the German Income Tax Act continues to run; it does not start afresh.

Documentation matters. Anyone transferring should record the acquisition date and acquisition cost per coin position in a way that can be evidenced later, because the platform no longer supplies that data automatically after a withdrawal. Aids for this are in our overview of crypto tax tools and portfolio trackers.

Balances at the exchange: only the withdrawal proves the claim

The Datavault AI case is not closed, and what stands between the company and the provider is not publicly clarified. What can be derived from it for your own portfolio does not depend on that.

1. Actually carry out a small withdrawal. Rather than checking the display in the account, move out an amount whose loss would not hurt, and see whether it arrives at an address to which you hold the key. Suitable platforms and their fees are in the overview of the best crypto exchanges.
2. Separate the long-term part. What stays put for years does not belong on the same platform as the trading balance. Which devices manage that and what they cost is in the hardware wallet comparison.
3. Look up the authorisation. The national and ESMA registers reveal in a few minutes whether a provider operates within the EU framework. Which platforms hold the authorisation is shown by the overview of regulated crypto exchanges.

The documents on the case are public: the Form 8-K report at the SEC and a presentation of the figures at TFTC.

(As of October 28, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

The record shows this: Bitcoin is quoted at $80,446 on Wednesday afternoon, and on New Year's Eve 2025 the price closed at $88,364. Between those two figures lie $7,918, or 9.8 percent, and 64 calendar days remain to close the gap. Our assessment follows further down: arithmetically the gap is small, yet the calendar to the turn of the year is tight, and for German investors more than a chart year runs out on December 31.

The calculation to December 31

The year-on-year comparison is the one metric that appears in every annual review on New Year's Eve, and it currently stands at minus 9.0 percent. The reference is the closing price of December 31, 2025 at $88,364. Getting back to that level from $80,446 takes no all-time high, merely a rise of 9.8 percent. That sounds like little, and in a market that swung between $80,153 and $81,636 within 24 hours it is still no foregone conclusion.

The counter-calculation belongs with it. The year's low was $58,566 at the end of June. From there Bitcoin has gained 37.4 percent without reaching the year line. October alone has cost 3.8 percent so far, measured from the month's opening at $83,640. The all-time high at $126,080 remains 36.2 percent away. Where the price can point over a horizon of months is set out in our Bitcoin price prediction.

The year-end reference date is more than a formality

For the chart, a calendar year is an arbitrary boundary; for reporting and for many portfolios it is not. Funds and asset managers are measured at year end, annual reviews quote the yearly return, and in German tax law the calendar year is the accounting unit for private disposals. That makes December 31 relevant twice over for investors in Germany, once as a measuring point and once as a deadline.

The range of Fed week, two days later

On October 27, our Bitcoin price prediction on the range in Fed week centred on an expected swing of around 6 percent. The price stood at $80,029 back then. Since then $417 has been added, or 0.5 percent. The $80,000 level has held over those two days, while the 30-day high at $86,490 remained untouched. The range named at the time has therefore played out in its lower third.

For the remaining stretch that means one thing above all: the volatility expected ahead of the rate decision has so far not discharged in either direction. The 30-day low at $80,029 and the daily low at $80,153 sit so close together that the market is currently treating the $80,000 line as a floor.

The comparison with November and December 2025

A look at the last comparable case puts expectations in order. On October 31, 2025 Bitcoin was quoted at $108,409. By December 31, 2025 it was $88,364. The final two months of last year therefore cost 18.5 percent. That is no argument against an annual gain in 2026, but it does refute the widespread assumption that the last two months are reliably strong for Bitcoin.

The range is what matters in this comparison. Anyone who bought on October 31, 2025 was 18.5 percent down two months later. A move of 9.8 percent upwards sits arithmetically well within what the remaining stretch of a year can produce for Bitcoin. The direction is not something the comparison tells us.

Four price levels with an origin instead of round numbers

Four price levels can be justified for the remaining stretch, and each has an origin instead of being a round number.

• $80,029 is the low of the last 30 days. It was reached on October 27 and sits 0.5 percent below the current price.
• $81,636 is Wednesday's daily high. Above it begins the zone in which the price was still trading two weeks ago.
• $86,490 marks the high of the last 30 days. It sits 7.5 percent above the present level and therefore on the way to the year line.
• $88,364 is the year line itself, the closing price of December 31, 2025. Only above it does 2026 stand in positive territory.

The order is instructive. The 30-day high lies between the current price and the year line. An annual gain therefore requires the market to recover the October high first and then add another 2.2 percent. Both within 64 days is possible, yet it calls for two steps rather than one.

What the futures market is pricing in for the remaining stretch

The perpetual futures contract on Bitcoin at the OKX exchange currently pays a funding rate of 0.0061 percent per eight-hour period. Annualised that is around 6.7 percent, which buyers pay to sellers. The funding rate is the adjustment that ties the futures price to the spot price: if the futures contract trades above the spot market, the long positions pay, and in the reverse case the short positions do.

A positive value of this magnitude describes a market with a slight overhang on the buy side, though without excess. For comparison: in last year's upward phases the funding rates regularly ran at twice and three times that. Open interest in the same contract comes to 31,163 Bitcoin, around $2.51 billion at the current price.

The ratio of accounts is shifting slightly

For every two accounts holding a long position there is one account at the same exchange holding a short. A week ago that ratio was 2.16, by now it is 2.0. There is therefore slightly less buy-side overhang than in mid-October, without the balance having tipped. For a move of 9.8 percent upwards, a far more one-sided positioning on the sell side would be the better fuel, because short positions are forced to buy back when prices rise.

Dominance, sentiment and what they do not say

Bitcoin accounts for 59.48 percent of the valuation of the entire crypto market, Ethereum for 10.46 percent. The overall market stands at $2.717 trillion and has lost 2.0 percent within 24 hours, while Bitcoin itself gained 0.24 percent. Dominance is rising in this constellation because the rest of the market is weaker, not because Bitcoin is strong. Anyone reading dominance figures as a buy signal regularly confuses those two cases.

The fear and greed index stands at 51 points and therefore in neutral territory; the day before it was 48 and before that 50 points. Three days without a swing in a week containing a rate decision is remarkably unremarkable. The data are at the Fear and Greed Index from alternative.me. A neutral reading delivers no signal; it merely rules out the two extremes in which counter-moves most often set in.

In the network itself, the next mining difficulty adjustment is due on Thursday, by current estimates 6.7 percent upwards, on the basis of around 1,105 exahash per second of computing power. For the 64 days that is a footnote with one consequence: if the effort per block rises while the price moves sideways, miners' margins fall and their selling pressure increases.

The turn of the year is also a tax deadline

Here lies the part of the remaining stretch that a chart does not show. In Germany, gains from selling Bitcoin are private disposals under Section 23 of the Income Tax Act. From that follow three deadlines, all tied to the calendar year, and 2026 is a year with a minus sign, so a year in which losses can arise.

The holding period is one year. Anyone holding Bitcoin for longer than twelve months sells the gain tax free. Anyone who bought before October 28, 2025 is already past that boundary with those units. We track the state of the political debate around this rule on an ongoing basis in our overview of the crypto holding period and its reform.

The exemption threshold has been 1,000 euros per calendar year since 2024. The word has to be taken precisely: this is an exemption threshold and no allowance. If the sum of all gains from private disposals in a year stays below 1,000 euros, no tax arises. If it is one euro above, the entire gain becomes taxable, including the part below the line.

The offsetting of losses is the point worth most in a loss-making year and overlooked most often. Losses from private disposals may be offset only against gains of the same kind, not against employment income and not against gains from shares or interest. The statutory text is in Section 23 EStG at gesetze-im-internet.de. The decisive part is the second half of the rule: a loss counts for tax only if the sale takes place within the one-year period. Once the holding period has elapsed, the loss is irrelevant for tax, just as the gain would be. Anyone who has documented their positions cleanly with acquisition date and entry price spots the difference in minutes; a look at the comparison of crypto tax tools and portfolio trackers shows which programmes carry the one-year period per purchase automatically.

How to work out your own annual position

The figures above describe the market, not your portfolio. Your own annual position follows a different calculation, and it needs three details per position: acquisition date, entry price and quantity. The acquisition date determines whether the one-year period has already elapsed on December 31. The entry price determines whether the position stands at a gain or a loss. Only both together say whether a sale achieves anything for tax.

An example makes the difference visible. Two purchases, both 10,000 euros, both worth 8,000 euros today. The first dates from March 2026, the second from March 2025. Selling the first this year creates an offsettable loss of 2,000 euros, which runs against gains from private disposals in the same year and is otherwise carried forward. Selling the second leaves the loss without effect for tax, because the holding period has elapsed. The market view is the same in both cases; the tax consequence is not.

The rate decision and the annual expiry on the calendar

The US central bank's rate decision falls on Wednesday evening. The monthly expiry on the futures exchanges runs out on October 30, the large annual expiry on December 25. In between lie two further mining difficulty adjustments and the November inflation data. Four dates on which movement can arise, and 64 days in which the 9.8 percent would have to be made up.

What argues for and against an annual gain

Our assessment: an annual gain in 2026 is achievable, but it is not the most likely outcome. In favour is that 9.8 percent within 64 days is no extraordinary move for Bitcoin and that the $80,000 line has held three times since October 27, most recently on Wednesday at $80,153. Against it is that the path runs via the 30-day high at $86,490, that the funding rate at 6.7 percent a year already indicates a buy-side overhang, and that the final two months of last year cost 18.5 percent. We derive no recommendation from this, only an order: the October high first, then the year line.

What would overturn this assessment can be named. A daily close above $86,490 shortens the calculation to 2.2 percent and makes the year line a task for a single day. A daily close below $80,029 turns the question around and makes the annual gain into a question about the second half's low.

Bitcoin to year-end: without $88,364, 2026 stays a losing year

The remaining stretch consists of a price figure and a deadline. Three steps can be prepared within the 64 days, whichever way the price runs.

1. Determine the annual position per holding. Compile acquisition date, entry price and quantity, and mark which purchases have passed the one-year period on December 31. Which programmes carry that per purchase automatically is set out in the comparison of crypto tax tools.
2. Check venue and costs before it gets urgent. Anyone wanting to sell or buy more at year end meets fees and spreads that can make the difference of two percent in return. The authorised providers and their costs are in the comparison of the best crypto exchanges.
3. Settle custody if holdings are staying put for longer. Positions deliberately held beyond the turn of the year do not necessarily belong in the trading account. The hardware wallet comparison shows which devices make sense for which portfolio size.

(As of October 28, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

Attackers tied to North Korea drained roughly $6.4 billion from the world’s largest crypto exchange. Here’s what we know about how it happened, who’s behind it, and what comes next.

From boat-racing bots to OpenAI models inside Hugging Face, here's how AI reward hacking works and why it matters.

Michael Selig said the record $6.4 billion theft shows why offshore exchanges should register with the CFTC and adopt U.S.-grade cybersecurity standards.

Intel beat third-quarter earnings expectations, but warned of a prolonged PC slump, sending shares to their worst daily decline in 50 years.

Analysts at Cantor Fitzgerald, TD Cowen and Compass Point say the record $6.4 billion theft is a Binance security failure, not a crypto-wide threat, pointing clients toward proxies like Coinbase, Robinhood, and Strategy.

Expert trader DonAlt explains why the $6.3 billion Binance hack is actually a rare bullish setup mirroring the 2022 FTX market bottom.

A reported $1.1 billion in NEAR derivatives open interest shows heavy speculation.

Ripple releases 1 billion XRP from escrow in scheduled monthly unlock.

OneKey's founder warns that an offline old iPhone is not a safe substitute for a dedicated hardware wallet.

Bloomberg Intelligence senior commodity strategist Mike McGlone has warned that Bitcoin (BTC) could be facing a major turning point against US Treasury bonds.

TLDR:

• The FBI attributes the theft of more than $6 billion from Binance to North Korea’s TraderTraitor group.
• TraderTraitor actors are converting the stolen assets mainly into Ethereum for further laundering. 
• Binance covered the losses with $6.34 billion from its own funds and is absorbing all related costs. 
• Withdrawals resumed in phases from November 1, with a full proof of reserves planned by November 3. 

The Binance hack, involving more than $6 billion in virtual assets, has been attributed to North Korea by the FBI. The agency says the theft took place on or about October 29, 2026.

It links the attack to a North Korean group called TraderTraitor. The Secret Service and IRS Criminal Investigation are working with the FBI on the case. Investigators are already tracking how the stolen funds are moving across the market.

How the Stolen Funds Are Moving

According to the FBI, TraderTraitor actors are converting the stolen assets mainly into Ethereum. Officials expect the group to move the funds through DeFi platforms and instant swap services.

These steps would prepare the assets for later stages of laundering. The FBI and its partners have observed this conversion process.

The FBI, the Secret Service, and IRS Criminal Investigation have issued a call to the private sector. Specifically, they are urging THORNode operators, RPC node operators, and instant exchanges to take action.

DeFi services, blockchain analytics firms, and other virtual asset service providers received the same request. The notice is addressed to private sector entities across the virtual asset industry.

The request asks them to block transactions with, or derived from, addresses used by TraderTraitor. Additionally, the FBI published a full list of addresses that hold or have held assets from the Binance hack.

Those addresses are operated by, or closely connected to, the North Korean actors. The full list appears in the FBI notice for reference.

Anyone with information is asked to contact a local FBI field office. The Internet Crime Complaint Center also accepts reports through ic3.gov.

The FBI says it remains committed to disrupting North Korea’s illicit cybercrime and asset theft activities. The agency also encourages the virtual asset community to share relevant information.

Binance Covers Losses and Resumes Withdrawals

After the Binance hack, the exchange moved quickly to cover losses using $6.34 billion from its funds. It fully backed major assets such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.

It also acquired less liquid tokens during the process. Less liquid tokens are assets that are harder to sell quickly in the market.

Withdrawals began resuming in phases on November 1. Binance is absorbing all costs related to the incident. As a result, the company, not its users, is carrying the financial burden. These steps followed the exchange’s decision to cover the losses directly.

Binance also plans to complete a full proof of reserves by November 3. This step follows the company’s move to back major assets fully. The timeline places the reserve review two days after withdrawals began resuming.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump said he is not concerned about the Binance hack. He added that he plans to talk to North Korea about the incident. The remarks follow the FBI’s attribution of the theft to a North Korean group.

The post FBI Blames North Korea for $6 Billion Binance Hack as Exchange Covers Losses appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• XRP price held near $1.24 after buyers defended $1.23. Binance, Bybit and Bithumb lost 250 million XRP in combined reserves.
• Binance reserves fell 8.18% to 2.47 billion XRP between Oct. 28 and Oct. 30. Upbit moved higher, adding 20 million tokens.
• XRP recorded a 36.55 RSI and a 42.31 Money Flow Index in the daily chart review. Both readings left buying strength below neutral.
• EGRAG CRYPTO outlined potential cycle targets of $6.80, $16.17 and $31.64. His scenario depends on price confirmation and has no deadline.

XRP price held near $1.24 after buyers defended $1.23, even as major exchanges recorded a sharp decline in reserves. Binance, Bybit and Bithumb held a combined 250 million fewer tokens between Oct. 28 and Oct. 30. Binance recorded its lowest XRP balance since December 2022. 

Market figures published Oct. 31 showed weak momentum alongside the reserve decline. Separately, EGRAG CRYPTO outlined potential cycle targets of $6.80, $16.17 and $31.64 on a monthly chart. His outlook relies on reclaiming a key moving average. The XRP price recovery still needs stronger buying activity, with daily indicators showing that sellers retain an advantage. 

XRP Price Holds Support as Exchange Balances Fall Further

CryptoQuant analyst Amr Taha put Binance exchange reserves at 2.47 billion XRP on Oct. 30, down from 2.69 billion. The 220 million token decline represented an 8.18% reduction over two days.

Bybit recorded a 6.54% fall, with balances dropping from 306 million to 286 million XRP. Bithumb lost another 10 million tokens, leaving 1.837 billion XRP on the platform.

The pattern varied across exchanges. Upbit added 20 million XRP over the same period, lifting its balance to 6.44 billion. The combined decline therefore describes the three named platforms, rather than every exchange. 

The reporting window also overlapped Binance’s Oct. 29 hack and the temporary withdrawal suspension that followed. This complicates a bullish interpretation of the reserve decline. CryptoQuant measures balances at exchange-labeled addresses. Establishing whether specific transfers reflect theft, custody changes or customer withdrawals requires tracing the transactions and their ultimate destinations.

Lower exchange reserves can reduce the inventory immediately available for trading. However, wallet balances alone cannot establish whether investors accumulated tokens or moved existing holdings elsewhere. A lasting XRP price recovery would require buying demand to strengthen alongside the reduction in exchange-held supply.

CoinGlass figures showed $5.78 million in spot net outflows. Spot trading flows and exchange wallet balances measure different activity. The negative reading should therefore be assessed separately from the reserve decline. 

CryptoQuant’s Network Value to Transactions ratio also fell 54.77% over 24 hours to 54.69, the report showed. NVT compares market capitalization with transaction volume. A falling ratio can reflect higher transaction activity, lower valuation, or both, so it does not independently establish undervaluation. 

The daily XRP price chart showed an RSI of 36.55, below its moving average of 40.19. The Money Flow Index stood at 42.31. Both indicators remained below 50, suggesting buyers had yet to regain control. 

EGRAG CRYPTO Outlines Three Targets on the Monthly Chart

EGRAG CRYPTO focused on XRP’s monthly chart in an Oct. 30 post. He highlighted three descending trendlines and the Atlas Line, a rising support line traced back to 2014.

His analysis linked previous rallies to reclaiming the 21-period exponential moving average. Because the chart uses monthly candles, this is a 21-month indicator. Reclaiming that level would be the next step in the analyst’s proposed cycle setup. 

The chart comparison showed consolidation lasting 30 bars in one cycle and 23 in the next. The current structure had reached 17 bars. Those periods corresponded to roughly 912, 699 and 518 days in the analysis.

His XRP price targets based on Fibonacci extensions start at $6.80, followed by $16.17 and $31.64. EGRAG CRYPTO presented them as macro targets without assigning a deadline. Their relevance depends on the breakout conditions in his chart developing.

The analyst said he was keeping cash available while awaiting confirmation before opening another leveraged long. That position leaves the projected upside contingent on a stronger technical setup. 

Nearer term, the XRP price must hold the 1.23–1.2352 support area identified in the daily review. A sustained recovery above $1.25 would improve the immediate structure while buyers work to rebuild momentum.

The post XRP Price Holds $1.23 Support as Exchange Reserves Drop by 250M appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• Nearly 2 billion SPCX shares unlocked in October, a potential $307 billion in selling pressure.
• The June 2027 unlock could free over $900 billion in stock for sale at today’s share price. 
• SPCX fell nearly 24% from its $176.42 peak to $134.50, with the next major support at $108. 
• At a $1.83 trillion market cap and $32 billion in revenue, SpaceX trades at roughly 57 times sales.

SpaceX stock has dropped nearly 24% from its October peak as billions of shares become eligible for sale. Market analyst Ali Charts reported the decline on November 1.

Nearly 2 billion shares unlocked in October alone, representing roughly $307 billion in potential selling pressure. Another large unlock is scheduled for June 2027 and could be much larger.

Meanwhile, the stock is approaching a crucial support zone, and the analyst questioned whether its valuation is justified.

Unlock Schedule Adds Selling Pressure

Ali Charts outlined the trend in a five-part thread on X. The thread tied the decline in SPCX to roughly $300 billion in unlocked stock. Moreover, he pointed out that unlocks are continuing after October’s heavy supply. The schedule extends well into next year.

At today’s share price, the June 2027 unlock could represent over $900 billion in stock becoming eligible for sale. That figure is nearly three times October’s total.

The estimate depends on where SPCX trades when the unlock arrives. The analyst described both figures as potential selling pressure.

Ali Charts also explained how unlocks work. They do not create new shares. Instead, they let holders of SpaceX stock sell shares that were previously restricted. In other words, the total number of shares stays the same.

The analyst tied this growing supply to the recent slide in SpaceX stock. At the same time, the chart shows weakness after the stock peaked earlier in October. Ali Charts presented the October total and the June 2027 estimate in the same thread.

SPCX Price Action and Valuation Metrics 

SPCX is the ticker under which SpaceX shares trade. The stock reached $176.42 on October 6 and has since fallen nearly 24% to around $134.50. The decline has unfolded in less than a month. Ali Charts said the stock is nearing a crucial support zone.

The analyst outlined a downside scenario if selling pressure continues. Should SPCX break below the mid-range of its channel, the next major support sits at $108. That is the level the analyst is watching next.

Beyond price action, the analyst framed the bigger question as whether SpaceX can justify its valuation. The company has a market cap of $1.83 trillion and annual revenue of $32 billion. At those levels, SpaceX stock trades at roughly 57 times sales.

The analyst calculated the revenue needed to justify the same valuation at lower multiples. At 30x sales, revenue would need to reach $61 billion. At 20x, it would need $91.5 billion, and at 10x, $183 billion.

That is nearly six times current annual revenue at a 10x multiple. Put simply, lower multiples require far more revenue at the same market cap.

Ali Charts concluded that SpaceX has a compelling growth story, but investors are paying a substantial premium for its future.

The post SpaceX Stock Falls 24% as $300 Billion in Share Unlocks Hit the Market appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• Hedge funds net sold global AI stocks for five straight sessions, erasing all buying since early 2025.
• Long positions drove the selling, which ran at about 3.5 times the pace of new bets against AI.
• Korea entered a bear market and Taiwan saw a record $9.3 billion single-day foreign outflow. 
• Gross leverage of 310.3% sits near five-year highs, so Goldman sees more deleveraging ahead. 

Hedge funds reversed all of their net AI stock purchases since early 2025 within five trading days, according to Goldman Sachs Prime Brokerage data.

The funds net sold global AI stocks from October 8 to 14. They also offloaded about $20 billion of tech shares over two weeks.

Most of the activity came from long positions being cut, at roughly 3.5 times the pace of new short bets. Goldman warns that deleveraging may continue.

Selling Pace Ranks Second Largest in Goldman Data

The selloff was the second largest in Goldman’s historical data, behind only the July crash. Global equities also saw heavy net selling, reaching -2.1 standard deviations in one day. Long positions led the exits, while short flows stayed near a low of about -13%.

Goldman’s basket of hedge fund favorites fell 4.2% on October 22, its worst day since 2011. Across all stocks, funds cut about 7.8% of total exposure. Steno Research said that was the biggest drop in Morgan Stanley data since 2016.

Hedge funds remain heavily positioned over longer horizons. Net allocation to AI stocks fell from 31.7% in early June to 26.1%.

Rachel Hu of Goldman Sachs Asia said trading feedback from Taiwan pointed to a wave that was less of a “capitulation” than July. She indicated that more selling pressure may still follow.

Asian Markets and Tech Sectors Take the Hit

The Korea Composite Stock Price Index entered bear market territory, and Seoul triggered its circuit breaker. Taiwan recorded its largest single-day foreign outflow, about $9.3 billion. Several Asian central banks intervened in currency markets.

Memory chipmakers Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron and SanDisk lost more than $700 billion in under two weeks. Chip stocks fell 15.6% in October, while the S&P 500 fell less than 1%. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index posted a seventh straight daily decline.

Eight of 11 U.S. sectors saw net selling, led by information technology and industrials. Meanwhile, hedge funds bought healthcare and consumer staples. Goldman described the move as a “marginal shift toward defensive positioning.”

Leverage Levels Keep Deleveraging Risk Alive

Gross leverage in Goldman’s prime book fell only 0.4 percentage points to 310.3%, near five-year highs. Net leverage dropped 1.5 points to 73.3%. Goldman said high gross leverage means the sellable size exceeds what net exposure suggests.

Rich Privorotsky of Goldman’s Delta-One business described the dilemma in an overnight report. He wrote, “In hindsight, the painful trade was going long AI and short bonds.”

He added that demand for computing power “can grow exponentially, but the capital available to finance it cannot.”

Analysts remain split on the outlook. JPMorgan leans toward viewing the dip as a buying opportunity. Goldman is more cautious, citing record foreign outflows in Asia and elevated leverage. Positions built in 2023 and 2024 remain intact on hedge fund books.

The post Hedge Funds Erase Two Years of AI Stock Buying in Five Days, Goldman Data Shows appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• More than 100 million records were exposed in October through leaks at firms and institutions.
• Binance lost $6.3 billion from hot wallets, while CryptoBilis and CoinDCX also reported thefts. 
• A weak eMudhra certificate key and two critical PHP bugs exposed core web infrastructure to attackers. 
• CERT-In reported unauthorized AI agent access to live systems, and major US banks began blocking agents. 

Black October is the name security researchers have given to the past month in cyberspace. Attackers exposed more than 100 million records and knocked hospitals and local governments offline.

Critical flaws also surfaced in widely used software. The month ended with $6.3 billion stolen from Binance hot wallets.

Most attacks relied on access that was already trusted, such as vendors, cloud logins, certificates, and old systems. Three crypto incidents were reported in the last week of the month.

Black October Began With Large Data Leaks and Software Flaws

In a post on X, Bull Theory listed the major incidents of Black October. Ransomware reached the University of Illinois Chicago College of Medicine.

Yakiniku King leaked 10.79 million member records. Denmark’s CPR register also saw 8.8 million identity records accessed without authorization.

A ransomware attack on IDCF Cloud disrupted services for 495 companies and local governments in Japan. Sourcenext reported 22.52 million customer records potentially exposed.

Burger King Japan and Capcom followed with 11.18 million and 11.77 million records. Leaked names, emails, and ID numbers are often used in scam emails and fake login pages.

Software flaws added to the problem. On October 17, researchers found that private keys behind eight eMudhra certificates were weak enough to be worked out. eMudhra’s shares fell about 20%, and the company is leaving the global SSL certificate business.

PHP also released emergency fixes on October 21 for two critical bugs. The flaws let attackers take over web servers without a password.

PHP runs on about 70% of web servers. The US government later confirmed active exploitation and ordered federal agencies to patch within three days.

AI Agents, Emergency Guidance, and Crypto Thefts Followed

AI agents added another risk during Black October. On October 15, India’s CERT-In warned that AI agents accessed live systems at Indian organizations without authorization. The agents reached personal data and confidential business records.

In the US, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, and Charles Schwab have started blocking outside AI agents from customer accounts. Governments are also preparing for system failures. On October 22, the UK launched its Be Ready campaign.

It advises people to keep at least three days of food and water at home. Germany advises up to 10 days, while Sweden, Norway, and Estonia suggest at least 7 days.

The final week brought further attacks. A cyberattack on University of New Mexico Health disrupted appointments and forced ambulance diversions. Florida’s Department of Education reported up to 4.9 million people potentially affected.

Crypto platforms were also targeted. CryptoBilis reportedly lost up to $93 million through tampered hardware wallets. CoinDCX lost nearly $16 million through compromised legacy wallet infrastructure.

Binance lost $6.3 billion from compromised hot wallets, among the biggest crypto hacks on record. Bull Theory noted that one compromised wallet can put billions at risk during Black October.

The post Black October Cyberattacks: Binance Hack Caps Month of Massive Data Breaches appeared first on Blockonomi.

October was once known in the cryptocurrency industry as ‘Uptober’ as it brought some spectacular gains for years. As such, expectations were high for another one in the 2026 edition, but that didn’t materialize for a vast portion of the crypto assets, including XRP.

In contrast, the company behind the cross-border token spent most of the month expanding essentially every part of its institutional business, from prime brokerage and stablecoins to banking, custody, corporate treasury, and the XRP Ledger itself.

From Wall Street to Swell

October 1-10:

Ripple Prime expanded its relationship with hedge fund Brevan Howard at the start of the month, providing multi-asset prime brokerage, clearing, and financing services. The company also deepened its South Korean presence through a partnership with Meritz Securities focused on custody and tokenization, while its prime brokerage arm moved into leveraged ETF swap financing.

RLUSD was the center of attention for most of the month, beginning with its market cap flying past the $2.5 billion threshold.

October 10-20:

The XRP Ledger Foundation confirmed that a critical integer-overflow vulnerability dating back to 2015 was fixed, stressing that it had never been exploited to create additional XRP tokens. Shortly after, Standard Chartered launched institutional custody for RLUSD through its Dubai branch, while XRP-focused treasury company Evernorth began trading on Nasdaq after completing its SPAC merger with roughly 473 million tokens.

Evernorth also announced plans to work with Ripple, Coinbase, Kraken, and BitGo to deploy its XRP treasury through institutional strategies.

October 20-25:

Ripple backed the SEC’s proposed Regulation Crypto Asset framework while arguing that securities classification should focus on the investment contract rather than automatically treating the underlying token as a security.

Ripple Prime added 24/7 RWA perpetual swaps, and Cross River Bank agreed to integrate RLUSD into its banking platform for payments, treasury operations, and conversions between dollars and the stablecoin.

After October 25 and Swell:

The company behind XRP introduced an expanded Ripple Treasury platform with AI-driven cash management and 24/7 Returns for qualifying digital assets. The OCC subsequently granted final approval for Ripple National Trust Bank, providing the company with a federally supervised entity for RLUSD reserves and enterprise digital-asset custody.

The firm also announced a broad partnership with Robinhood, covering RLUSD, institutional settlement, treasury operations, financing, and Bitstamp. BNY expanded custody support to both XRP and RLUSD, while Ripple and C2FO unveiled plans to use XRPL and the stablecoin for near-instant supplier-payment settlement.

Coinbase became the next major platform to expand RLUSD access across all of its platforms, while Ripple revealed that its annualized product revenue run rate is approaching $900 million, with more than 1,700 institutions, corporations, and enterprises using its infrastructure.

RLUSD received an A2 long-term and P-1 short-term investment-grade rating from Moody’s, with the latter representing the agency’s highest short-term grade for stablecoins.

XRP Stalled

It’s almost hard to believe, but all of those developments happened in a single month. And maybe we have missed a couple, even though we try to be as thorough as possible. You would think the only volatile cryptocurrency within that broader Ripple ecosystem would benefit from these, right?

It sounds logical, and it should be the reality, but it isn’t. XRP has frequently moved on hype, not the actual positive news. This doesn’t mean that it didn’t try to break out in October, as it started the month at around $1.50 and quickly aimed at $1.55. However, it was rejected violently at that point, and it has been mostly downhill since then.

The culmination took place on Friday after the infamous Binance hack. XRP, alongside most crypto assets, tanked hard and dropped to a two-month low of under $1.20. Although it rebounded to $1.25 at the end of the month, it’s still deep in the red in what was supposed to be Uptober.

The post Ripple Had a Massive October, but XRP Went the Other Way appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Bitcoin’s gradual recovery from the largest crypto hack in USD terms continues, with the asset slowly grinding toward $78,000.

Most altcoins have remained quite sluggish since yesterday, with ETH posting a minor increase, while TRX has dropped hard once again. There’s only one alt with a substantial double-digit surge today.

BTC Eyes $78K

The rejection at $85,000 on October 21 was the beginning of a more profound correction that started with a dive to $79,200 last Saturday. The bulls tried to intervene and helped BTC recover $2,000 on Sunday and Monday, but the bearish sentiment prevailed, and the asset dipped below $80,000 once again.

Brief signs of strength emerged on Tuesday and early Wednesday, during the hours leading up to the FOMC meeting, when BTC surged to almost $82,000. Once the meeting concluded and the Fed left interest rates unchanged, BTC dipped below $80,000 before it jumped back to $81,900.

Its ascent was halted there, and the cryptocurrency dipped below $81,000. Then came news that Binance was the latest big-name hack victim in the crypto markets, with the losses exceeding $6 billion. Bitcoin reacted immediately with a painful nosedive to $76,400. The dead-cat bounce took it two grand higher before it dipped again to a new six-week low of $76,100.

Since then, it has gradually recovered, gaining almost $2,000, and the asset is now fighting to reclaim the $78,000 level. Its market cap has returned to $1.560 trillion on CMC, while its dominance over the alts is just shy of 60%.

LIT Defies the Market

Ethereum is up by just over 1% in a day, and has rebounded by more than $100 since its Friday low to trade at $2,270. BNB has rebounded from the sub-$700 drop and now sits close to $710. XRP is back at $1.25, while SOL continues to struggle at $95. TRX has slumped by nearly 5% to $0.31.

In contrast, LINK, LTC, and UNI have posted gains of 3-4%, while AVAX is up to $8.8. MORPHO, AAVE, QNT, and PUMP are also in the green. The biggest gainer today is LIT, which has rocketed by over 16% and now sits well above $3.10.

The total crypto market cap has added $20 billion since yesterday, and it’s up to $2.620 trillion on CMC.

The post This Altcoin Defies Sunday Sluggishness as BTC Eyes $78K Recovery: Weekend Watch appeared first on CryptoPotato.

October, often called ‘Uptober’ in crypto markets because of past performance, is one of the year’s most anticipated months, and this edition followed that trend, as BTC had seen three consecutive months in the green leading up to it.

Reality, though, was different as usual, and data shows that BTC tanked by over 7.3%. Here’s why and what we can expect in November.

Uptober Failed

Ever since the July 1 bottom of under $58,000, bitcoin went into an impressive three-month green-only streak, surging by 7.27% in July, 25.05% in August, and 6.37% in September. This was the first such three-month period during a perceived bear market, which prompted numerous analysts to call its end and to declare the beginning of the subsequent bull phase.

October indeed started on the right foot, with BTC surging from under $83,500 to over $87,000 in just a few days. Although it was halted there at first, it returned to $87,000 on October 5 and 6. However, that was the last time the asset would trade this high. By October 9, it had already crumbled by almost $7,000 and dumped to $80,400.

The key $80,000 support managed to hold the descent, but bitcoin eventually dipped below it on October 15 after the release of the CPI and PPI data for September, with both metrics confirming that inflation was higher than expected. The bulls stepped up at this point and helped BTC recover to $85,000 by October 21.

Another rejection followed, though, and the cryptocurrency ultimately slumped below the $80,000 support and tanked to a six-week low of $76,100 on October 30. This substantial leg down was driven by the massive $6.3 billion hack at Binance and the ETF outflows that day, which turned the entire month red.

Although bitcoin rebounded to over $77,000 as the month ended, it still saw a 7.32% decline, doubling down on last week’s 3.95% October drop. Before that, BTC had finished six consecutive Octobers well in the green: five of them were with double-digit gains.

What Does November Hold?

Last year’s November was painful – Bitcoin exacerbated the losses that began after the mid-October crash and nosedived 17.5%. November 2024, on the other hand, was well in the green, posting a massive surge of 37.36%.

November used to be one of BTC’s best months in its early days, especially from 2012 until the bull market in 2017. The tide turned in later years, with controversial moves, including a 36% drop in the 2018 bear market and a massive 42.41% jump in 2020.

With the upcoming US mid-term elections at the start of the month and countless reports suggesting that the strikes against Iran will resume immediately after they conclude, it’s safe to assume volatility will remain high.

The post ‘Uptober’ Flopped as BTC Tanked 7%: Will November Be Any Different? appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Binance is preparing to reopen withdrawals in phases as early as today, less than 72 hours after the largest recorded crypto theft in dollar terms.

Meanwhile, the FBI formally attributed the attack to North Korean hackers and warned that the stolen assets are already being moved through laundering channels. US President Donald Trump also weighed in, saying he will talk to the Koreans.

Withdrawals to Resume

The company’s statement earlier this morning said phase one of withdrawals will begin progressively between 06:00 and 09:00 UTC today, after the exchange completes its latest security and operational checks. Binance reaffirmed that deposits had remained available before and after the incident.

The first phase covers 15 networks, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, BNB Smart Chain, Solana, XRP, Dogecoin, Polygon, Arbitrum, Base, Optimism, and Sui. Supported assets include BTC, ETH, BNB, XRP, SOL, DOGE, and numerous altcoins, with additional networks and tokens to be added once the exchange deems them ready.

The company warned that users could encounter temporary delays as traffic returns. It has also accelerated efforts to replace the assets affected by the breach. According to its latest update as of press time, 95% of the impacted amount has been replenished, up from 90% in its Saturday update.

BTC, ETH, USDT, BNB, SOL, USDC, XRP, USD1, RLUSD, and ZEC balances are fully backed, while the remaining 5% consists of less-liquid tokens that are taking longer to source through market and OTC purchases.

Once again, Binance promised to absorb the financial damage from the hack, not its user base. It also plans to publish a full post-incident report after the investigation concludes.

FBI Blames North Korea

The FBI confirmed multiple reports after the hack that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea was behind it, stealing more than $6 billion in cryptocurrencies from the world’s largest crypto exchange. It identified the operation as part of the country’s cyber campaign known as “TraderTraitor.”

The agency added that the attackers have been converting much of the stolen digital assets into Ethereum and are expected to continue laundering the funds through decentralized finance platforms and instant-swap services.

The FBI, Secret Service, and IRS Criminal Investigations have consequently urged exchanges, DeFi operators, blockchain analytics companies, and other industry participants to block transactions connected to identified attacker-controlled addresses. CZ quickly thanked these agencies for their involvement and assistance.

Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump, who said he would look into the hack, promised to talk to North Korea if it’s confirmed that the country was responsible for it.

The post Binance Starts Withdrawal Recovery as FBI Blames North Korea for $6B+ Hack appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Bitcoin’s decline has accelerated into the $77K region after buyers lost the $80K support area. The price is now testing a major daily demand zone, while on-chain data shows it approaching the average cost basis of recent holders.

Bitcoin Price Analysis: The Daily Chart

On the daily timeframe, Bitcoin has decisively broken beneath the ascending channel’s midpoint. The sharp bearish move carried the price through $80K and into the highlighted $75K–$78K demand zone, with BTC currently trading around $77.7K.

This region supported September’s advance, making it an important test for the broader recovery. However, the latest candles show only limited stabilization following the selloff. Holding demand could produce a relief bounce toward $78K–$80K, but buyers would need to reclaim the broken midpoint around $81K to demonstrate a more meaningful improvement.

The bearish continuation scenario remains favored while the price stays beneath these lost levels. A sustained breakdown below $75K would expose the channel’s rising lower boundary around $72K–$73K. Conversely, a strong response from demand and recovery above $81K would weaken the immediate bearish structure.

BTC/USDT 4-Hour Chart

The 4-hour chart shows a sharp breakdown following another failed recovery beneath the broken ascending trendline. Bitcoin lost the $79.8K support boundary and quickly declined toward $76.3K before consolidating near $77.3K. The modest rebound suggests that buyers have slowed the decline without yet reversing momentum.

The marked $74.9K–$76.3K demand zone is the next immediate defense. A return beneath $76.3K would expose more of this region, while sustained acceptance below $74.9K would strengthen the case for further downside.

On the upside, the recent consolidation around $78K–$78.3K presents the first recovery hurdle. Beyond that, the highlighted $79.8K–$81.9K zone now represents potential overhead supply. Until Bitcoin reclaims this area, rebounds remain vulnerable to forming another lower high within the ongoing correction.

Sentiment Analysis

The Realized Price UTXO Age Bands chart tracks the average on-chain cost basis of coins grouped by age. The latest decline has brought Bitcoin near the realized price of the 1-to-3-month cohort, which has risen sharply toward approximately $76K–$76.5K.

With the market price around $77.3K, these recent holders are approaching aggregate breakeven. This creates an important confluence with the technical demand zone around $75K–$78K. A successful defense could help stabilize sentiment among this cohort, while a sustained move below its cost basis would place it in aggregate unrealized loss and could increase pressure on more sensitive holders.

Meanwhile, the 6-to-12-month cohort’s realized price has declined toward $84K–$85K and remains above spot. This region could become an additional recovery hurdle if holders use a return toward breakeven to reduce exposure.

For now, the approaching $76K–$76.5K cost basis is the more immediate reference point. Its interaction with price could help distinguish a temporary correction into demand from a deeper deterioration, although realized price alone does not guarantee support.

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