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.

The surge in early voting in the Rio Grande Valley may signal shifting voter dynamics, potentially influencing Texas's political landscape in 2026.

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Legacy device vulnerabilities highlight the critical need for updated security practices, impacting crypto asset safety and user trust.

The post OneKey founder warns older iPhones have unpatchable chip vulnerabilities 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.

Agave leaves the applied-rate field empty, so verifying a staking fee requires historical validator state and delegation evidence.

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Higher selected derivatives exposure and ETF redemptions leave the recovery facing a demand test before November 6 payrolls.

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An October 31 API reading shows partial recovery, with available USDC at about 7% of reported total assets.

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Private credit funds can count interest as income even when the borrower hasn't sent them any cash, because some loan contracts let businesses add interest to what they owe. That gives a company more time to pay, but it doesn't extend the same courtesy to the fund, which could have borrowed money from a bank…

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The company urges vigilance for unexpected authentication prompts as it determines which customer records were accessed.

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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.)

The Bitcoin price is quoted at $77,725 on Sunday morning. Between the high of $77,750 and the low of $77,094 over the past 24 hours lie $656, or 0.85 percent. How far the price can reach over a horizon of months is set out in our Bitcoin price prediction.

That range is the real finding of the morning, more telling than the price level itself. Working through the October days one by one, only a single day came out tighter, October 17 at 0.77 percent. The median across all 29 fully traded October days was 2.28 percent, close to three times today's reading.

$656 between high and low: the Bitcoin price has not been this tight since October 17

A daily range is the distance between the highest and the lowest price of a day, measured as a percentage of the low. The daily range says something different from the daily change: the price can end the day at the same level having swung six percent in between. That is exactly what October was.

On Sunday morning the change over the last 24 hours stands at plus 0.79 percent. The market capitalisation of all Bitcoin comes to $1.562 trillion. The figures are on the CoinGecko Bitcoin overview, as of November 1, shortly before six o'clock German time.

For a market that ran through $4,431 in a single day only two days earlier, a range of $656 is a different world. The distance to this week's lowest point, $76,338 on October 30, currently comes to $1,387 or 1.8 percent.

All 29 October days calculated individually: the median sits at 2.28 percent

To gauge how unusual 0.85 percent is, we calculated every October day individually. The basis is CoinGecko's four-hour candles, from which the daily high and the daily low emerge for each calendar day in UTC. cryptoticker.io compiled this analysis itself on November 1, 2026; 29 days were fully traded.

The series shows two things. First, October was a month of large daily moves; six days came in above three percent. Second, that has turned around in the last 48 hours, and very quickly.

From the widest to the tightest day in 48 hours

October 30 was the widest day of the entire month at 5.80 percent. A day later it was 1.36 percent, and in the 24 hours to Sunday morning 0.85 percent. The range has thus shrunk to less than a sixth within two days.

Transitions like that are no coincidence. After a wave of forced selling, the market lacks precisely what amplifies movement. How strong that wave was, we reported on October 30: $1.54 billion was liquidated across the crypto market that day.

$44.1 billion in turnover at a 0.85 percent range: both sides balance out

The obvious conclusion would be that little simply gets traded at the weekend. The figures say the opposite. Turnover over the last 24 hours comes to $44.1 billion. The median of daily turnover over the past 30 days is $27.8 billion, again a count of our own from the same data series.

So more is being traded than on an ordinary October day, and the price still barely moves. That means buyers and sellers are finding each other at this price in large volume. Every sale meets a bid, every bid meets an offer. What is missing is a side that wants to shift the price.

Why a tight range forms after a wave of liquidations

A liquidation is the forced sale of a leveraged position by the exchange as soon as the margin no longer suffices. The mechanism works in two directions, and it explains both the wide day and the tight one.

During the wave, every move amplifies itself. If the price falls, long positions are closed, that selling pushes the price further down, and the next liquidation price is reached. That is how a range of $4,431 came about on October 30.

Afterwards that material is gone. The positions that would have been liquidated at $80,000 or $79,000 no longer exist. Anyone selling now does so by their own decision, without an exchange forcing their hand. Without that amplifier, the move stays at the size that supply and demand themselves produce, and right now that is $656.

The fear and greed index stands at 34 points alongside this, placing it in fear territory. On the two preceding days it was at 30 points. The readings are at the Crypto Fear and Greed Index. Sentiment has therefore brightened slightly without reaching neutral territory.

What has changed since Friday midday

At midday on Friday the Bitcoin price stood at $77,536. The trigger back then was an outflow of $643 million from the American Bitcoin ETFs, which we broke down in this analysis on October 31.

Since then almost nothing has happened to the price: $77,725 on Sunday morning is $189 or 0.24 percent more. The low of $76,615 from October 31 has not been reached again since Friday midday, and the high of $77,750 from the last 24 hours sits above every high of the previous day. The price has settled into the upper part of Friday's range without leaving it.

For the question of ETF flows, the weekend brings no new figures: the funds trade on business days. The next data arrive on Monday, November 2.

The levels that lead out of the range: $77,051 and $76,338

In a situation this tight, levels are not arbitrary; they can be read off the prices actually traded. On the downside, three steps are justified:

• $77,051: the low from Friday morning. It sits only 0.06 percent below the low of the last 24 hours and thus forms the lower edge of all trading since Friday.
• $76,615: the daily low of October 31.
• $76,338: the low from October 30 and the lowest price traded this week. Below that, this data series offers no further support from October.

On the upside the first step lies at $77,750, the high of the night. The range of October 30 adjoins it, with interim highs at $78,107 and $78,638. October's opening level, $83,576, is 7.5 percent away from there.

October itself ended at $77,223 and thus 7.67 percent below the September close of $83,640. It was the first losing month since June; July, August and September had delivered 7.63, 19.95 and 7.70 percent. These month-end prices also come from our own count of the daily data.

Weekend trading in Germany: these routes are open on Sunday

Crypto trades around the clock; access to it does not. Anyone wanting to buy or sell on Sunday has to distinguish which route they take.

Exchanges and trading platforms with MiCA authorisation in the EU accept orders on Sunday too, because trading takes place directly in the order book. Authorisation under the European regulation on crypto assets has been mandatory since December 30, 2024 for providers addressing customers in the EU; which houses hold it is shown by a look at the supervisor's register and our overview of regulated crypto exchanges.

Products that run via a securities exchange are a different matter. Bitcoin ETPs and ETNs trade on Xetra and in Stuttgart only during exchange hours, so not at the weekend. Anyone holding such paper in a securities account can neither buy nor sell today. The same applies to the American Bitcoin ETFs.

With derivatives the tight range is particularly relevant. A leveraged contract is liquidated when the price touches the liquidation price, regardless of how calm the market was beforehand. Anyone leveraged over the weekend has two concrete figures in $77,094 and $76,338 against which to measure their distance. Platform fees and funding costs differ markedly, and the perp DEX comparison shows the spreads.

Losses from October: what happens to them in the tax year

October brought many investors paper losses. For tax purposes a paper loss is nothing: only the sale turns it into a private disposal under Section 23 of the German Income Tax Act. For practice that means two things.

First, the date of the disposal counts, not that of the price decline. A loss sitting in a securities account today and realised in January belongs to the 2027 tax year. Anyone wanting to assign it to 2026 has until December 31 to do so.

Second, these losses can be used only to a limited extent. They can be offset solely against gains from private disposals in the same year, not against employment income and not against capital income from shares. Whatever remains at year end carries forward as a loss carry-forward into the following years. The exemption threshold for gains is 1,000 euros a year; if it is exceeded, the entire gain is taxable.

On the other side stands the holding period. After a holding period of one year a gain from a sale is tax free, which also makes a loss irrelevant for tax after a year. Anyone who bought in October or November 2025 is now running into that deadline. How the legislator is currently handling the rule, we track on the page on the status of the crypto holding period. Your own calculation is no substitute for tax advice; which programmes prepare the transactions for it is set out in the overview of tax tools and portfolio trackers.

What is on the calendar this week

The trading week will either pull the market out of its calm or leave it there. Three points are dated.

On Monday, November 2, the American Bitcoin ETFs resume trading, and the first inflow or outflow figures of the new month appear. After Friday's outflow of $643 million, that is the next hard data point.

Then there is the start of the month itself: fund providers and custodians settle at the first of the month, and savings plans are executed in the first few days of a month. Those purchases meet a market with a very tight range this week.

The third point lies further off. The next interest rate decision by the American central bank is due on November 10, together with new inflation data; we compiled the dates on October 31. Until then the market lacks a major monetary policy trigger.

In Germany, November 1 is All Saints' Day in Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland, and therefore a public holiday. Banks and securities exchanges are closed; the crypto market is not.

Tight range: the next impulse comes from outside, not from the chart

A range of 0.85 percent on $44.1 billion of turnover describes an equilibrium, not a market at a standstill. Three steps follow from it:

1. Note the three levels. $77,750 on the upside, $77,051 and $76,338 on the downside. As long as the price stays between them, nothing is decided. Which platform offers which order types for that is shown by the exchange comparison.
2. Measure weekend leverage against the weekly low. The distance to the liquidation price is the figure that counts, rather than last night's calm. The cost differences are in the perp DEX comparison.
3. Place the October losses by December 31. Realised, they belong to the 2026 tax year, after that to the next one. The tax tools handle the preparation.

(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.)

With the PREDICT airdrop from Binance Wallet you choose between two payout routes, and the choice is a one-off: Option A pays out 35 percent of your allocation promptly, which writes off the remaining 65 percent for good. Option B pays the full 100 percent, but only after the project has completed a year of staking. Anyone who has not submitted a form by November 26, 2026, 09:00 UTC, is automatically assigned Option B.

That is the core of it, and it is often reported wrongly: doing nothing does not cost you the 65 percent. Doing nothing ties you to a year of staking. Only those who actively pick Option A lose the 65 percent. This distinction decides whether you have to act at all.

Option A pays 35 percent, Option B the full 100 percent

The Binance Wallet announcement describes two variants of the allocation. Under Option A you receive 35 percent of the tokens due to you, paid out promptly. For the remaining 65 percent, the announcement states explicitly that this share expires with the choice and cannot be reclaimed by the token project. Under Option B you receive the full 100 percent as soon as the project has completed a staking period of one year.

Allocation here means the amount of tokens due to you on the basis of the Predict Points you have collected. That amount is not yet a credit. You can dispose of it only once the variant you chose is paid out.

What is final about the choice

Two stipulations make the decision harder than a normal claim window. The form can be submitted only once per account, and no changes are possible after submission. Anyone who picks Option A and looks at the price two weeks later cannot go back. That one-way street is the reason a close look pays off before you submit anything.

Anyone who does not submit the form lands in Option B automatically

The default is clearly set out in the announcement: if no form is submitted before the deadline expires, Option B applies. For you that means doing nothing amounts to a decision on the substance rather than a postponement. You are opting for the full 100 percent and against quick availability.

For most participants that default is the economically obvious one, because it writes off no share. The price for it is time: for one year you have no access to the tokens, and you carry the full price risk throughout.

The submission deadline ends on November 26 at 09:00 UTC

The hard cut-off for the form is November 26, 2026 at 09:00 UTC. In German time that is 10:00 CET. After that moment no submission is possible, and the default takes hold for good.

The deadline on listing day, October 29 at 09:00 UTC, has already passed. Anyone who submitted nothing back then has lost nothing: weekly batches exist for later submissions.

The times quoted in other sources

Depending on the source you will read 17:00 Beijing time, 4 a.m. East Coast time or 09:00 UTC. That is the same moment in three time zones. Rely on the figure in the Binance announcement itself, because conversions in third-party sources repeatedly differ by an hour.

The weekly batches pay out on November 6, 13, 20 and 27

Anyone submitting Option A after October 29 is not served straight away but in a weekly batch. The payout dates are November 6, 13, 20 and 27. What counts in each case is the cut-off at 09:00 UTC on the preceding day.

That produces a marker considerably closer than the submission deadline: the next cut-off is November 5 at 09:00 UTC. Anyone who wants to make the batch of November 6 has to submit before then. And the last batch on November 27 falls after the submission deadline of November 26, so anyone who still wants to catch it has to submit by November 26 all the same.

For Option B these dates play no role. There the clock starts only when the project completes the one-year staking period.

The PREDICT listing is postponed indefinitely

Binance has postponed the start of trading in PREDICT. October 30 at 10:00 UTC had been scheduled, with the pairs PREDICT/USDT, PREDICT/USDC and PREDICT/TRY. Via its own channel the exchange said the listing is being postponed indefinitely. Alpha trading in Binance Wallet will also start later; the exchange will announce a date separately.

The background is a security incident at Binance in late October. The exchange temporarily suspended withdrawals, is working on securing its withdrawal service and has announced proof of its reserves. The project predict.fun has adjusted its token generation event and the first-season claim to the postponement.

Without an exchange price there is no yardstick for giving up 65 percent

The postponement changes the calculation, and precisely at the point where Option A would be attractive at all. Normally you weigh things up: 35 percent at a known price today against 100 percent at an unknown price in a year. That trade-off needs a price for the present.

That price does not exist at the moment. As long as PREDICT is not tradable, you do not know the value of the 35 percent you are committing to, and you certainly do not know the value of what you are giving up. Anyone submitting Option A now commits to a share whose present value they cannot put a figure on.

Why an early price says little anyway

Once trading gets going, the first few hours are rarely a reliable yardstick. At a token launch a small circulating supply meets high attention, and the spread between bids and offers is wide. A price from that phase is hardly a basis for a decision that binds for a year.

Predict Points: where the points balance sits in Binance Wallet

Your allocation depends on the Predict Points you have collected by using the prediction platform. You will find the balance two ways: via Binance under "Assets" in the Prediction Account, or in Binance Wallet via "Discover", then the Predict dApp and "Assets" there.

Which route you take has a practical consequence that is easily overlooked. If you query the points via the Binance assets page, the credit runs to the Alpha account. If you query them via Binance Wallet, the tokens land in the associated wallet. Anyone searching later and finding nothing is often looking in the wrong place.

The records you should secure now

Keep your points balance, the date of submission and the option you chose on file, ideally as a screenshot with a visible date. For your tax return you will later need the inflow with its date and value, and if the tax office queries it, your own record is considerably more robust than your memory. Which data tends to pay off with airdrops is something we have set out in an overview of the records to keep for airdrops.

A year of staking means price risk and smart contract risk

Staking means that tokens are locked in a contract for a set period, usually to secure a network or run an application. For you as a holder, the lock-up mainly means you cannot sell during that time.

With Option B, two risks come together that you weigh against the 65 percent. The first is the price: if PREDICT falls by more than 65 percent during the year of the lock-up, the immediate partial payout would have been the better route in hindsight. The second is technical. Locked tokens sit in a smart contract, and an error or a gap in that contract can make balances unreachable. How providers and lock-up periods differ in staking is shown by our comparison of staking platforms.

On top of that, the staking period has to be completed by the project. The timing of the full payout therefore hangs on a process you do not steer. Anyone who needs access to the money within months should factor that into the decision.

A perspective that goes beyond this one airdrop can be found in our collection on crypto airdrops. How claim deadlines have played out in other cases is shown in our piece on when an airdrop entitlement expires.

Airdrops and tax: inflow and sale are assessed separately

In Germany, the taxation of an airdrop depends on whether you provided something in return for the tokens. You collect Predict Points by using the platform, so through an activity. On the common reading, that argues for treating the inflow as other income under Section 22 No. 3 of the German Income Tax Act, valued at the euro amount at the moment of the credit.

If you later sell the tokens at a profit, Section 23 of the German Income Tax Act applies to private disposals, with the holding period of one year. In its circular of March 6, 2025, the German Federal Ministry of Finance confirmed that staking does not extend the holding period of the underlying coins. Income from the staking itself counts as other income again.

One point is disputed in the specialist literature and should make you cautious: with airdrops it is contested whether your own inflow or the distributor's acquisition counts as the start of the holding period for a later sale. Anyone expecting larger amounts is better off clarifying that with a tax adviser in advance than with the tax office after the fact.

The 256-euro threshold and the 1,000-euro threshold apply separately

Two thresholds are regularly mixed up, and the confusion costs money. For other income an exemption threshold of 256 euros a year applies. For private disposals a threshold of 1,000 euros has applied since 2024, raised by the Growth Opportunities Act from 600 euros before.

Both are exemption thresholds and not allowances. If a threshold is exceeded, the entire amount is taxable and not just the part above it. So you check the inflow from your airdrop and your staking income against the 256 euros, and a later sale profit against the 1,000 euros. How to keep clean records of both across the year is shown by our comparison of tax tools and portfolio trackers. Our piece on tax on crypto airdrops goes deeper into the taxation of free tokens.

What Option B adds for tax

If you lock the tokens for a year, staking income may arise that has to be recorded as other income, even though you have sold nothing. That a tax liability can arise without a sale surprises many holders; we have described this in more detail using the example of unsold airdrops.

What the postponement means for trading on Binance

As long as PREDICT is not listed, there is no order book trading in the token on Binance. For you that means you could not currently exchange a partial payout from Option A for euros or stablecoins on the exchange. The token sits either in the Alpha account or in the wallet until trading begins.

In this phase a partial payout therefore remains a position you have to hold, whether you want to or not. That is a further argument for leaving the decision open until trading starts and letting the default take effect, as long as your own needs allow it.

PREDICT airdrop: without a form, one year of staking applies from November 26

The decision comes down to a single question: do you need part of the tokens soon, or can you wait a year? Anyone who can wait has to do nothing and receives the full 100 percent. Anyone who cannot wait pays for it with 65 percent of the allocation.

1. Clarify your points balance and the route. Check whether your Predict Points run via the Binance assets page or via Binance Wallet, because that determines where the tokens arrive later. If you notice in the process that you are running several trading venues in parallel, the exchange comparison helps you tidy up.
2. Weigh the lock-up against your needs. A year without the option to sell is the price for the full 100 percent. How long other providers lock up and what they pay for it is set out in the comparison of staking platforms.
3. Record the inflow for tax. Note the date and euro value of the credit and check your other income against the threshold of 256 euros. A tool from our tax tool comparison takes care of the running overview.

The postponement of the listing has eased the situation rather than tightened it. Without a price, the argument for the quick partial payout is missing, and the default leads to the full allocation without any action from you. Binance has said it will announce the start of trading separately.

(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.)

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.

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

Cryptocurrency exchange Binance is set to resume withdrawals for XRP, Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Solana (SOL) and other major cryptocurrencies on Nov. 1 after recovering 95% of the assets affected by a massive $6.3 billion security breach.

The next critical question is whether XRP can stage a recovery.

XRP 'uptober' disappoints but burn rate doesnt.

Dogecoin posts a negative return of 20.5% in October despite bullish expectations earlier in the month, suggesting that it has extended the negative trend seen last year.

TLDR:

• OpenAI now seeks $20B at a $1.25T valuation, down from $1.4T, after cutting its target by $10B.
• CoreWeave’s five-year CDS spread topped 1,100 basis points in mid-October as its bonds fell below 80%.
• Blackstone, an anchor investor, warned Anthropic may not earn an investment-grade rating after its IPO.
• Citigroup sees over $2.8T in AI infrastructure spending through 2029; Morgan Stanley sees a $1.5T gap.

Is the AI funding boom starting to crack? The question has gained attention after the Financial Times reported two new setbacks for the sector.

OpenAI cut its funding target by $10 billion and now seeks $20 billion at a $1.25 trillion valuation. Blackstone also warned that Anthropic may not receive an investment-grade rating after its IPO.

Goldman Sachs estimates investors had lent AI-related companies about $500 billion in 2026 by early October.

Two Setbacks Raise Questions About AI Funding

Coin Bureau raised the question in a post on X. The post said OpenAI slashed its funding target by $10 billion. Its new goal of $20 billion comes at a $1.25 trillion valuation, down from $1.4 trillion.

The second setback involves Anthropic. Blackstone is an anchor investor in the company’s $63 billion chip financing deal. It warned that Anthropic may not get an investment-grade rating following its IPO.

Lending to the sector has grown quickly. Goldman Sachs estimated that investors lent AI-related companies about $500 billion in 2026 by early October. Meanwhile, the cost of insuring several AI-linked companies’ debt against default rose sharply in October.

Credit Markets Show Early Stress

Credit default swap spreads show how the AI funding boom looks to lenders. CoreWeave’s five-year spread topped 1,100 basis points in mid-October.

Oracle’s reached roughly 300 basis points in October. Meta’s hit a record 114.79 basis points on October 22, after its earnings.

CoreWeave’s bonds also came under pressure. They fell below 80% of face value, and the yield approached 15% on Thursday, according to SiliconANGLE and Naked Capitalism. The company already carries roughly $52 billion in debt and lease obligations.

Oracle’s Project Jupiter adds another example. The 1,400-acre campus sits in Doña Ana County, New Mexico. About $18 billion in related loans trade at 89 to 91 cents on the dollar.

Permit denials, environmental litigation and construction delays pushed the timeline back by at least seven months. As a result, Oracle reportedly invoked force majeure, and its credit rating slipped to BBB-, one notch above junk.

Borrowing Pace and Spending Forecasts

The FT reported that America’s roughly $10 trillion AI infrastructure buildout is starting to fray. Hyperscaler debt issuance reached $121 billion in 2025, four times the historical average. Bank of America expects another $100 billion in 2026. The pace resembles the dot-com era telecom buildout.

PIMCO estimates that hyperscaler capex absorbs 93% to 94% of operating cash flow. Private credit is filling part of the gap.

Apollo and Blackstone finalized a $35 billion package in June, called Project Big Sky. It funds Anthropic’s lease of Google-designed tensor processing units. Blackstone has since pitched a follow-up of roughly $36 billion.

Spending forecasts keep rising despite these signals. Citigroup now expects tech giants to spend more than $2.8 trillion on AI infrastructure through 2029.

Morgan Stanley estimates a $1.5 trillion funding shortfall against $2.9 trillion in data center capex between 2025 and 2028. Meanwhile, Barclays cut Dell, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and NetApp to hold on October 15.

Those stocks, with Oracle and CoreWeave, lost about $80 billion in one session. Barclays found businesses put only about 5% of IT budgets toward AI, and a quarter of that goes to hardware.

The post Is the AI Funding Boom Starting to Crack? OpenAI Cuts Target by $10 Billion appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• Kraken xStocks has surpassed $1 billion in assets under management, up from roughly $225 million in February, according to Payward.
• Payward reports more than $45 billion in cumulative transaction volume and over 550,000 holders across the tokenized equities ecosystem.
• The network includes more than 1,500 tokenized representations, but Kraken lists fewer products, and eligibility varies by location.
• xStocks holders do not own the underlying shares or receive voting rights, and the products are unavailable to customers in several countries.

Kraken xStocks has passed $1 billion in assets under management as tokenized stock offerings expand across crypto markets. Payward, the infrastructure company behind Kraken, said the milestone was reached on October 27.

Assets have more than quadrupled since February, when they stood near $225 million. Payward also reported over $45 billion in cumulative transaction volume and more than 550,000 holders.

The framework lets eligible users hold tokens linked to stocks and exchange-traded funds across supported platforms. However, the products have restrictions and do not provide the same rights as owning shares directly. Jersey-based Backed Assets (JE) Limited issues the tokens.

Kraken xStocks Growth Extends Across Global Markets

Payward launched Kraken xStocks in June 2025 with 60 tokenized US stocks and ETFs on Solana. The company says the ecosystem now spans more than 1,500 representations of stocks, funds and IPO exposure.

The range covers assets from the US, UK, Europe and Hong Kong. Payward says tokenized representations of Russell 1000 constituents are also live in the ecosystem.

The broader count does not mean every product is available on Kraken or in every market. Kraken’s support page listed 131 assets on October 30 and noted geographic restrictions.

Kraken xStocks can be transferred to compatible wallets and used on supported blockchain applications. Payward says the ecosystem now operates across more than ten blockchains.

The company reported more than $100 million in tokens deployed in decentralized finance, or DeFi. Some protocols allow eligible holders to use tokens as collateral or lend them.

Bybit, another crypto exchange, has enabled six xStocks as collateral for certain lending and margin products. The availability of these services depends on the platform and user eligibility.

Kraken xStocks can trade outside stock market hours. Kraken says most trade around the clock on weekdays, while selected assets are available at weekends on Kraken Pro. Direct issuance and redemption through the issuer operate on weekdays, even when secondary trading continues over weekends.

Changes in share prices can affect assets under management, alongside investor purchases and redemptions. Payward’s $45 billion figure measures cumulative transactions across the ecosystem. It is separate from the value of assets under management.

Ownership Rules and Competition Shape Tokenized Stocks

Backed Assets (JE) Limited issues Kraken xStocks as digital debt instruments called tracker certificates. According to the issuer, each is collateralized by the corresponding stock or fund held with regulated custodians.

That structure gives holders economic exposure to an underlying asset, rather than direct ownership of its shares. Kraken says holders receive no voting rights or direct claim to the underlying company’s stock.

Investors do not receive ordinary cash dividends. Kraken says dividend proceeds can be reinvested into the underlying asset and reflected in token balances through an adjustment.

Kraken xStocks are unavailable to US persons and customers in the UK, Canada and Australia. Availability can differ across eligible countries and trading platforms.

The products carry issuer, custody and liquidity risks, according to Kraken’s disclosures. Using tokens in DeFi can add smart contract and liquidation risks. Outside exchange hours, lower liquidity can widen the spread between buyers and sellers.

Competition is growing across the tokenized equities market. Ondo Finance said its competing Ondo Stocks products passed $1 billion in total value locked in May 2026.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission is developing rules for a separate form of tokenized stock trading. It granted conditional relief to qualifying venues in September and gave some issuers a chance to object. On such venues, tokens must provide holders the same rights as conventional shares.

Microsoft, Alphabet and Goldman Sachs later objected to their shares trading on the proposed OKXICE venue. That proposed US venue would operate under a separate framework from the offshore xStocks offering.

The post Kraken xStocks Passes $1 Billion as Tokenized Equities Expand appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• Bitcoin ETF outflows totaled $643.33 million on Friday, wiping out four sessions of inflows and leaving the week in negative territory.
• BlackRock’s IBIT and Fidelity’s FBTC led a broad retreat, with five major Bitcoin funds recording withdrawals during the session.
• Ether and Solana ETFs also posted outflows, while Bitcoin traded near $77,600 on Saturday after the market’s response to the breach.
• Binance says it has replaced 90% of affected assets and aims to restart withdrawals on November 1 following security checks.

Bitcoin ETF outflows reached $643.33 million on Friday, ending four consecutive days of inflows. The broader selloff followed the Binance hack. The withdrawals left US spot Bitcoin funds with total net outflows for the week.

Bitcoin traded near $77,600 on Saturday, according to market data, after falling below $77,000 during Friday’s selloff. Ether and Solana funds also recorded net withdrawals.

The $6.3 billion Binance breach occurred after Thursday’s US stock market close. Friday was the first full trading session for ETF investors to respond. The flow figures show the scale of redemptions, but not the reasons behind each investor’s decision.

Bitcoin ETF Outflows Erase Four Days of Investor Inflows

The latest Bitcoin ETF outflows reversed $440.73 million in net inflows recorded from Monday through Thursday. Friday’s result left the five-day period roughly $202.6 million in the red, according to SoSoValue figures.

BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust, known as IBIT, led the withdrawals with $233.70 million. Fidelity’s FBTC followed with an outflow of $201.04 million.

ARK 21Shares’ ARKB recorded $129.55 million in net withdrawals. Grayscale’s GBTC and Bitwise’s BITB lost $53.32 million and $25.72 million, respectively.

The Bitcoin ETF outflows spread across five major funds, following a week when some inflows were concentrated in IBIT. A net outflow means fund share redemptions exceeded new creations during the session.

Trading activity also rose sharply. Bitcoin fund trading value reached $6.35 billion on Friday, compared with $2.11 billion the previous day.

Total net assets stood at $98.14 billion, below the $100 billion mark. That change reflects both fund flows and changes in the market value of their Bitcoin holdings.

ETF shares give investors Bitcoin exposure through a brokerage account. Their flows can help track demand for the products, though they do not reveal individual motives.

Friday’s withdrawals coincided with broader market stress, including declines in US technology stocks. The figures alone cannot establish how much of the Bitcoin ETF outflows resulted from the exchange breach.

Crypto Markets Face Fresh Tests After the Binance Breach

Bitcoin ETF outflows were part of a wider retreat across crypto investment products. US spot Ether ETFs lost $155.85 million on Friday, their fifth consecutive session of net outflows.

BlackRock’s ETHA accounted for $76.64 million of that amount. Ether fund withdrawals for the full week reached approximately $431.5 million.

Solana ETFs recorded $10.74 million in outflows on Friday, taking their weekly withdrawals to about $71.5 million. XRP products also posted a smaller net outflow.

The Binance hack added a security shock to a market already facing volatility. Binance said the breach affected roughly $6.3 billion in cryptocurrency held in its hot wallets.

The exchange says it has replenished approximately 90% of the affected assets using company resources. Binance said it set aside more than $6.34 billion in company funds to cover the theft. It pledged to cover all losses for customers. It plans to resume withdrawals in phases on November 1, subject to security checks.

The Bitcoin price recovered from Friday’s lows but remained below the $81,000 to $82,000 resistance area identified before the drop. Traders are watching the $76,000 region after the recent decline.

A move back above $78,000 would be an initial sign of stabilization, according to chart analysis. A break below $76,000 could expose lower levels.

Bitcoin ETF outflows arrived as other major tokens showed deeper declines from their respective recent highs. An earlier market comparison put Bitcoin’s pullback near 6.5%, while BNB had dropped roughly 14%.

Ether had fallen about 20.6% from its cited peak, and XRP about 23%. The comparisons use different starting points and do not represent identical weekly returns.

BNB traders are watching the $690 area, while XRP faces support near $1.20. Ether’s nearby support zone lies between $2,170 and $2,200.

The post Bitcoin ETF Outflows Reverse Four Days of Inflows After Hack appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• The Ethereum price traded near $2,250 on October 31 as ETF outflows and a large attacker-linked ETH holding drew investor attention.
• Glassnode reported 23 straight ETF outflow sessions, with Farside data showing a $4.4 million inflow on October 23 and a five-day streak.
• Wallets linked to the Binance hack held an estimated 525,200 ETH at 16:51 UTC, according to a later report on October 31.
• Binance says it has replaced 90% of the stolen assets, while its customer compensation does not erase the ETH still held in attacker-linked wallets.

The Ethereum price faces a test as investors weigh ETF withdrawals against the risk of stolen ETH reaching the market. Ether traded near $2,250 on Saturday, October 31, according to recent market data.

Glassnode data shows US spot Ether ETFs recorded 23 consecutive outflow sessions. Attention has also turned to wallets linked to the $6.3 billion Binance hack. A later report placed their holdings above 525,000 ETH, although any future sales remain uncertain. Binance says it has replaced 90% of the stolen assets.

Ethereum Price Tested by ETF Outflows 

The Ethereum price is contending with weaker fund demand as investors reassess their exposure to digital assets. The token fell more than 5% on Thursday and regained some ground on Friday. Glassnode described the 23-session run as the longest since US spot Ether ETFs launched.

Farside’s data show five straight outflow sessions from October 26 through October 30. Those withdrawals totaled approximately $431.4 million, including $155.7 million on the final day.

BlackRock’s iShares Ethereum Trust recorded $76.6 million of that day’s outflows. Grayscale’s Ethereum Mini Trust lost $34.1 million.

Glassnode said traditional investors had bought heavily in August and September. A sustained return of ETF inflows would give traders another measure of institutional demand for the Ethereum price.

Stolen Ether Holdings Keep Market Supply Risk in Focus

An earlier estimate from blockchain analytics firm TRM Labs put attacker-linked holdings above 420,000 ETH. An estimated approximately 525,200 ETH across linked wallets at 16:51 UTC on October 31.

The figures use different reporting times and wallet scopes. They therefore do not establish a directly comparable increase in the attacker’s holdings.

A large position could weigh on the Ethereum price if its holder sells into the market. The effect would depend on the size and timing of trades and the liquidity available to absorb them.

Aave risk researchers said one linked wallet deposited about $60 million in USDT as collateral on October 29. It borrowed 19,762 wrapped ETH before the lending protocol restricted activity. Aave’s market freeze blocked new activity but did not seize the borrowed funds.

That loan represents only part of the estimated Ether holdings. Researchers say other stolen assets were also exchanged for ETH.

Tether and Circle froze significant amounts of stolen stablecoins. Unlike those tokens, native ETH has no central issuer that can freeze it directly.

Binance says it has replenished 90% of the assets affected by the hack. The exchange also says customer ETH is fully backed and plans to resume withdrawals on November 1. Its replacement funding includes corporate funds, futures insurance reserves, and the SAFU emergency fund.

Those replacement purchases are separate from the ETH still held in attacker-linked wallets. The Ethereum price could face a supply overhang even after customer balances are covered. Buying replacement Ether could add demand, but Binance has not said it will purchase the attacker’s tokens.

The post Ethereum Price Faces 525K ETH Supply Risk as ETF Outflows Mount appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• The Binance hack left $6.3 billion in stolen crypto, and the exchange says it has replenished about 90% using company funds.
• Binance plans to resume withdrawals on November 1 after security checks, with services expected to return in phases for users.
• Binance says ten named assets are fully backed, while less liquid tokens account for the 10% still awaiting replenishment.
• A reserve snapshot has been published, and Binance expects full cryptographic proof for eligible user balances by November 3.

The Binance hack has left the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange working to replace billions in stolen assets. Binance said Saturday it has replenished about 90% of the cryptocurrency taken in the $6.3 billion theft.

The exchange said it will absorb the losses and plans to resume withdrawals on Sunday, November 1. Binance withdrawals were suspended after the attack as the exchange reviewed its systems. The announcement came two days after the attack.

Co-CEO Richard Teng said users would not bear the financial impact. Cryptocurrency prices fell on Friday following the breach, with Bitcoin and other major assets coming under pressure.

Binance Hack Response Draws on Three Funding Sources

Binance said it had set aside more than $6.34 billion in company funds to cover the losses. Its latest update puts the share replenished at 90%, up from approximately 80% in its previous statement.

The response to the Binance hack draws on three funding sources. These include Binance’s corporate treasury, part of its futures insurance fund and its Secure Asset Fund for Users, or SAFU. The exchange said it expected to deploy part of SAFU over the following 24 hours.

Before the Binance hack, SAFU served as an emergency fund for exceptional security incidents. Binance said it plans to restore the fund to approximately $1 billion after using part of it to cover losses.

The exchange is buying the missing assets through open markets and over-the-counter transactions. The latter are trades arranged outside public order books, which can help buyers source large quantities.

Binance said the remaining 10% comprises less liquid tokens outside the ten assets it identified as fully backed. Those assets may take longer to purchase in the required amounts.

The Binance hack also prompted efforts to stop stolen assets from moving. Binance said it worked with law enforcement, token issuers and other partners. Together, they froze approximately $3 billion on-chain.

Frozen assets are separate from the replacement assets Binance is acquiring. A freeze restricts movement, but it does not automatically return the assets to the exchange.

Withdrawal Plans and Proof of Reserves Remain in Focus

Binance withdrawals remain on track to resume on November 1, the exchange said. Its earlier update said services would resume in phases, subject to security checks. The company said deposits and other unaffected platform services remained operational.

The Binance hack investigation has expanded beyond an initially suspected compromised laptop. Binance said investigators found additional points of breach and were still working to establish the full sequence. Security measures include revoking affected authorizations and reviewing the compromised infrastructure. Binance plans to publish a detailed incident report.

Teng also described malicious software that deleted evidence of its activity, making the investigation harder. Binance said on Friday it had found no evidence that wallet private keys were leaked.

Blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs attributed the theft to the North Korea-linked group TraderTraitor. The firm said its assessment was based on on-chain and off-chain intelligence.

After the Binance hack, the exchange published a proof of reserves snapshot taken at midnight UTC on October 31. The report gives users a view of the assets Binance says it holds against customer balances.

Binance said BTC, ETH, USDT, BNB, SOL, USDC, XRP, USD1, RLUSD, and ZEC were fully backed. That proof of reserves snapshot reflects holdings at a set time; it excludes subsequent deposits and withdrawals.

The full cryptographic proof will take approximately 40 to 50 hours to generate, the exchange said. According to Binance, the process will allow holders of those tokens to verify their balances within its reported liabilities.

Binance expects to make the full proof available by November 3. Binance said the proof will let users verify a minimum backing ratio of one to one.

The post Binance Hack: Exchange Replaces 90% of Stolen $6.3B in Crypto appeared first on Blockonomi.

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.

The post Bitcoin Price Prediction for the Week: Will BTC Reclaim $80K or Dump Toward $70K? appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Bitwise has raised its 10-year Bitcoin price target from $1.3 million to $1.6 million by 2036, despite Bitcoin having a difficult year, marred by falling prices, weaker sentiment, and an uncertain macroeconomic environment.

In Bitwise’s updated Long-Term Capital Market Assumptions report, CIO Matt Hougan and Head of Research Ryan Rasmussen used the same model as last year but incorporated the latest market and economic data. Interestingly, rather than lowering their expectations after Bitcoin fell more than 50% between October 2025 and June 2026, reaching a low below $59,000, they ended up becoming more bullish.

The revised target also increases Bitcoin’s projected compound annual growth rate from 28.3% to 34.3%.

Long-Term Outlook

Hougan said he initially worried that the latest data would force them to reduce their forecast to $1 million or lower, particularly with sentiment taking a hit, inflation remaining stubborn, interest rates rising, war in the Middle East, and concerns about an AI bubble. However, the numbers told a different story. The higher price target comes down to two things: the size of the markets Bitcoin can address and the share of those markets it can capture.

On the first front, Bitwise increased its estimate of the store-of-value market over the next decade from $91 trillion to $110 trillion, reflecting growing investor concerns about continued fiat debasement and high inflation. Its projection for the institutional investment market also increased from $216 trillion to $303 trillion. Other potential markets, including offshore wealth and emerging market currencies, expanded as well. A larger addressable market means a higher potential Bitcoin price if it captures a meaningful share of that opportunity.

The second factor is Bitcoin’s ability to gain market share. According to Hougan, several developments have strengthened that case. Wealth management platforms such as Wells Fargo and Merrill Lynch have moved towards Bitcoin rather than away from it, while central banks and sovereign wealth funds have also inched closer. Bitcoin’s cyclical volatility has continued to decline, too.

Correlation With Gold Rises

Despite these developments, Bitwise kept its assumptions about Bitcoin’s share of each market unchanged from last year, choosing not to increase them. Hougan also acknowledged the counterarguments. Most of the money flowing into store-of-value assets has gone into gold rather than Bitcoin, the latest downturn once again highlighted the crypto asset’s vulnerability to sharp losses, and ETF inflows have slowed.

But he pointed to several developments that suggest the market has become more resilient. Bitcoin’s correlation with gold has increased, its 53% peak-to-trough decline was shallower than losses in previous bear markets, and institutional investors continued adding exposure throughout the downturn despite slower ETF purchases. Bitcoin’s share of the store-of-value market has grown from less than 1% a decade ago to more than 5% today.

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The US Treasury has sanctioned 10 individuals and one entity for allegedly helping North Korean IT workers earn money through fraudulent employment at legitimate businesses and convert cryptocurrency into cash.

The action targeted financial intermediaries in a network that generates hundreds of millions of dollars annually for Pyongyang.

How the Cash-Out Chain Worked

According to a report by Chainalysis, Russian nationals Ilya Aleksandrovich Boykov and Vitold Viktorovich Obertas converted millions of dollars in crypto for front companies that placed North Korean IT workers at businesses under false identities. The workers’ earnings ultimately helped fund the North Korean regime and its weapons programs.

The blockchain analytics firm traced one payment trail to a developer who contributed code to blockchain and DeFi projects. From late 2022 to early 2023, the worker’s wallet received stablecoin payments every two weeks, resembling a regular salary.

Those funds were converted into ETH and sent through consolidation wallets associated with sanctioned entities, before being passed to Boykov, who forwarded the cryptocurrency to Garantex, a Russian exchange that was later sanctioned by US authorities.

Obertas was also accused of acting as a financial intermediary for North Korean officials, with his wallet receiving funds from another sanctioned organization, Amnokgang Technology Development Company, which was involved in managing overseas IT worker delegations.

According to the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), the Russian changed nearly $2 million worth of crypto into fiat currency for North Korean officials.

The designations also cover Kim Ki Hyok and Kim Hyo Dong, two North Korean nationals who managed IT workers based in Russia, along with First Financial and Technical Development Center (FFTDC), also based in the country, and six North Korean workers associated with it. Per Chainalysis, those six workers had generated more than $750,000 for FFTDC since 2025.

Fake Developer Identities Remain a Corporate Risk

As we have reported in the past, North Korean IT workers have been using fabricated identities and stolen credentials to secure jobs at legitimate companies, after which they transfer much of their income to the regime. The United Nations Panel of Experts estimates these operations generate $250 million to $600 million annually.

In April, blockchain investigator ZachXBT uncovered records linked to a North Korean fake-developer operation that generated more than $3.5 million in cryptocurrency, with another report from security researcher Taylor Monahan claiming that North Korean-linked developers had helped build some of the most prominent DeFi protocols, including SushiSwap and THORChain.

Chainalysis also warned that generative AI is making recruitment fraud harder to detect, with operatives using AI-generated resumes and profile photos, as well as deepfake video during hiring calls, to appear legitimate.

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