Cointelegraph

Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chair Michael Selig says it is “no longer science fiction” to imagine one’s refrigerator autonomously purchasing groceries with money earned from staking Ether — or even launching its own memecoin, raising questions about how regulators should oversee autonomous AI agents.
The colorful comment came during Selig’s remarks at the CFTC’s inaugural Frontier Forum in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, where he argued that regulators must adapt to a financial system where AI agents can hold assets and execute trades autonomously.
“We’re gathered here today to discuss a technology that’s rapidly transforming the financial markets. President Trump calls it ‘super intelligence,’ or SI, because ‘it’s not artificial.’ It’s as real as the printing press, the steam engine, and the internet,” he said.
Selig says the CFTC’s regulatory framework was developed around “identifiable market participants” performing specific financial functions, but autonomous software is raising questions about how those rules apply.
“Consider an SI agent that identifies trading opportunities and executes transactions on behalf of a user,” said Selig.
“Does the developer of that agent become subject to registration? Who is liable if the agent goes rogue? How can regulators know who the agent, or suite of agents, is trading on behalf of? Do we need a new flavor of know-your-customer, maybe KYA or know-your-agent?”
AI could democratize trading, but bring new risks
Selig said AI could give smaller traders and businesses access to risk-management that was once reserved for larger institutions.
“SI can help process the vast amount of information significantly faster than human brain power and with greater accuracy,” he said.
But greater autonomy also comes with new risks. Agents could react unexpectedly to market conditions, while those using similar models could generate correlated trading behavior. The speed of autonomous transactions could also complicate market surveillance and risk management, he said.
Animoca Brands Chairman Yat Siu recently raised a similar concern, telling Cointelegraph that a thousand people asking AI about the same trade could receive roughly the same answer. Users’ own knowledge and follow-up questions help shape more personalized strategies, he said.
Last year, the Bank of England’s Financial Policy Committee also warned that widespread use of similar models could amplify market shocks.
Crypto exchanges are already developing tools for autonomous trading.
Coinbase introduced Agentic Wallets in February, allowing agents to spend and trade within user-defined limits, while Binance launched AI Agent Skills in March to provide market data and tools for placing and managing spot orders.
Magazine: Agents can trade 24/7 — but Yat Siu warns you could lose access at any time

Singapore police say at least two cases involving tampered Ledger hardware wallets have been reported since Sept. 10, with combined losses of about 3.5 million Singapore dollars ($2.7 million), placing local reports almost a month before the wider incident became public.
In an advisory published Wednesday, the Singapore Police Force said preliminary investigations found malicious hardware components in Ledger wallets purchased from some retail stores in Singapore.
The disclosure adds both a local loss figure and an earlier reporting date to the incident, which surfaced publicly on Oct. 9 following reports of losses involving devices sold through CryptoBilis, an authorized Ledger reseller in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines.
Days later, former Mt. Gox CEO Mark Karpelès said that a Ledger Flex purchased at Singapore’s airport contained a spy implant.
Another Ledger user claimed to have a tampered device bought from local IT retailer Challenger. The user said he was later sent a new device from Ledger.
On Oct. 13, Ledger said it has asked retailers in Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Hong Kong to suspend sales of Ledger devices as investigations are ongoing.
Singapore police said it is in contact with Ledger, which is reviewing the affected cases, while police investigations are ongoing.

Bitcoin could face further headwinds after the US Federal Reserve held interest rates steady while signaling continued concern about inflation, according to market analysts.
The Fed voted 10-2 Wednesday to maintain its benchmark interest rate at 3.75% to 4%, with Governor Lisa Cook and Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack favoring a quarter-point increase.
Fed Chair Kevin Warsh acknowledged that inflation remained above the central bank’s 2% target.
“Americans… are still dealing with inflation that has been running above the Committee’s objective for close to 6 years. It’s our responsibility to get inflation down,” he said.
Iggy Ioppe, chief investment officer at tokenization platform Theo, said the decision itself was widely expected, but investors had not fully anticipated the Fed’s hawkish messaging.
“Markets had the hold priced, but not the hawkish tone,” he said in comments sent to Cointelegraph.
There are expectations that the Fed will raise rates in its Dec. 8-9 meeting, and again next year.
CME FedWatch data showed traders assigning a 78.4% probability to a quarter-point increase by December and a 67.3% probability of at least a quarter-point increase by March, as of Wednesday.
Warsh declined to say whether the Fed would raise rates at the end of the year.
“A lot of things can happen, so I’m not going to be able to share with you my musings about what happens when this group gets together six weeks from now,” he said during a press conference.
At elevated interest rates, Bitcoin has to “compete with” a risk-free rate near 4%, said Ioppe.
However, Bitget analyst Lewis Huang said Bitcoin’s next move could depend less on the Fed’s decision itself than on Treasury yields, the US dollar and broader investor sentiment.
“With limited new direction from the Fed, Bitcoin’s near-term performance may depend more heavily on Treasury yields, dollar movements and broader risk sentiment,” he said.
Analysts, including Huang, are now looking to Thursday’s personal consumption expenditures inflation report and earnings from major technology companies for clues about the direction of risk assets.
Sygnum Bank chief investment officer Fabian Dori agreed, adding that “the next couple of days promise more excitement” with Thursday’s release of PCE inflation data.
“Various Mag 7 companies reporting earnings this week will help clarify whether AI capex is turning into revenues. Following these short-term catalysts, broader liquidity and financial conditions are likely to shape the path towards the December decision,” he added.
Magazine: Crypto could outperform AI stocks: Wall Street veteran Jordi Visser

The criminal case of Aiden Pleterski, the self-described “crypto king” who was allegedly behind a Ponzi scheme involving digital assets, will go to jury deliberations after closing arguments this week.
According to Wednesday reporting from CBC, the jury overseeing Pleterski’s case will begin deliberations on Thursday after receiving final instructions from Justice Shaun Nakatsuru. Pleterski allegedly defrauded his social media followers out of about $30 million between 2021 and 2022. He was charged with fraud in 2024 and had been awaiting trial for more than two years, choosing to represent himself in court.
“I am innocent of these charges,” said Pleterski, according to CBC. “That is why I pled not guilty. Had I not been forced to represent myself, that would have been proven. That’s all I have to say.”
The fraud charge against the “crypto king” could result in a prison sentence of up to 14 years should he be found guilty at trial. Pleterski is one of many high-profile figures tied to the crypto industry accused of fraud, though others have already been convicted. Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried is serving a 25-year prison sentence in the United States following his 2023 fraud conviction.
In a separate criminal case, five men, some of whom were reportedly victims of Pleterski’s scheme, were charged with kidnapping and torturing the “crypto king” in 2022. One of the men, Deren Akyeam-Pong, pleaded guilty to nine charges and awaits sentencing.

In about three weeks, Netflix is set to release one of the first dramatizations of the saga of cryptocurrency exchange FTX since its CEO, Sam “SBF” Bankman-Fried, was found guilty and sentenced to prison.
According to a Wednesday Vanity Fair report, Anthony Boyle, the Irish actor portraying SBF on screen for the Netflix series ‘The Altruists,’ contacted the former CEO in prison via email as he prepared for the role. Although Boyle said he “promised him that I wouldn’t divulge anything,” Bankman-Fried reportedly answered the bulk of the actor’s questions ahead of the series’ release.
“I was interested in what possessed someone to become the world’s youngest billionaire,” said Boyle, according to Vanity Fair. “I’m not really interested in money or crypto or finance. It was: What makes them do the things that they do?”
Based on a trailer Netflix released on Oct. 8, the series appeared to be centered on the relationship between Bankman-Fried and his colleague and girlfriend, Caroline Ellison, who headed FTX’s sister arm, Alameda Research. SBF was convicted of seven felony counts related to the misuse of customer funds at FTX and sentenced to 25 years in prison, while Ellison was released in January after serving more than a year as part of a plea deal with US authorities.
Former FTX COO Constance Wang said that the on-screen portrayal of the executives made her “feel physically upset,” adding that SBF was more “socially awkward” than Boyle demonstrated.
Bankman-Fried has already been covered by several media outlets and was the subject of Michael Lewis’ 2023 book Going Infinite. Ben McKenzie’s documentary Everyone Is Lying to You for Money included a 2022 interview with the former CEO before the exchange’s downfall, but no other significant dramatization of SBF or FTX has been released on the big screen or television until The Altruists.

Cybersecurity professionals are having a brutal month.
What’s being dubbed Black October isn’t even over, and it’s already brought about several dozen major cyberattacks and AI-identified vulnerabilities across the internet.
When critical vulnerabilities in PHP, the programming language used by around 70% of websites, were uncovered with the help of AI tools and disclosed by the PHP Foundation on Oct. 21, the race to patch servers around the world began.
Cloud services provider Cloudflare reported millions of attempts to exploit the vulnerability after its disclosure, following thousands of attempts in the preceding hours.
Some countries, including France and Finland, temporarily pulled access to certain websites while the US National Security Agency (NSA) warned organizations to patch the flaws immediately or take affected systems offline.
“We are at Security Armageddon now,” said NEAR founder Illia Polosukhin. Anthropic’s chief security adviser Jason Clinton warned that, “as bad as things have gotten in the past 4 days, they are going to get a lot worse before they get better.”
Citizens of the United Kingdom are even being urged to “be ready” for an emergency, such as severe weather or cyberattacks, that could cut off access to critical infrastructure such as water, electricity or the internet. US military installation have been told to prep for 90 days of independent operation under the FORTRESS initiative.
Houston, do we have a problem?
Beyond rushing out to stockpile canned food and walkie-talkies, is there anything else ordinary people can do to mitigate their exposure?
So how bad is Black October, really?
“It’s really bad. It looks like the rest of the internet is waking up to the reality we had three months ago,” Rob Hamilton, a Bitcoin security researcher involved in the Bitcoin Red Team, tells Magazine.
UK government is urging citizens to be ready for an emergency. Source: gov.uk
In the past week or so, cloud platform Railway disclosed that an attacker has accessed and decrypted customer credentials and API keys, apparently targeting AI providers.
Medical testing giant Quest Diagnostics confirmed a breach of private patient health data, while Indian security firm eMudhra was found to have eight digital certificate authorities with weak keys that could potentially have let attackers impersonate trusted websites. And code hosting platform GitHub experienced a major service disruption that highlighted how heavily the software world relies on shared infrastructure.
GitHub’s senior director of security, Austin Devers, says incidents like this are a “clear reminder that reliability requires constant work,” because modern development is “so connected.”
Railway security incident. Source: Railway
Jonathan Riss, an OSINT and blockchain intelligence analyst at blockchain security firm CertiK, tells Magazine:
“What concerns us most is how a single weakness in shared infrastructure can expose many organizations simultaneously.”
Unfortunately, he adds that AI’s ability to find vulnerabilities is not matched by its ability to fix them:
“Finding vulnerabilities faster does not automatically give us the capacity to resolve them faster.”
Why things are likely to get worse
One reason the problem is getting worse is because AI has changed the economics of cybersecurity.
What once required nation-state resources and sophisticated hackers to pull off can now be achieved by a teenager in a basement somewhere.
AI entrepreneur and investor Matt Shumer said that AI enables non technical users to find weak spots and exploit them, leaving defenders are “racing to keep up.”
“Every weak spot still has to be fixed, tested and installed on millions of systems run by people who are already stretched thin.”
Devers says AI-assisted security tools are “dramatically” lowering the barrier to “uncovering complex, deep-seated flaws in widely used codebases.”
What can ordinary people actually do?
There are some practical steps ordinary folk can use to stay safer online during this volatile period.
The internet is under attack. Source: Matt Shumer
Shumer recommends staying off sites you don’t know, and definitely don’t enter passwords or card numbers into unfamiliar sites “until this blows over” since smaller sites are the “least likely to have patched.”
Delete any apps you don’t use and unplug smart gadgets you don’t need. Keep some cash at home and enough groceries for a few days, “if you want to be extra careful.”
Devers says the best defense is “locking down personal access points and keeping overall footprints small.” Turn on Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) across all accounts, ideally using an authenticator app or hardware security key rather than text messages.
“This acts as a circuit breaker and stops hackers from logging into your account even if the underlying software is compromised.”
Never reuse passwords either, he says. “Create strong, unique passwords for every site, and periodically disconnect old app permissions or third-party connections you no longer use.” Keep your devices and web browsers updated automatically:
“While platform teams work to fix cloud-level security issues on the backend, keeping your devices secure ensures hackers can’t use your personal hardware as a back door into your accounts.”
To self-custody or not self-custody, that is the question
While the alarming rise in security incidents has caused some crypto holders to consider alternatives and some experts to advise against self-custody, others, such as Bitcoin advocate and Casa chief security officer Jameson Lopp, remind users that defeats the whole purpose.
“You can only benefit from Bitcoin’s unique properties when you hold your own keys. [...] Giving up your keys doesn’t make the risk go away, he says. It moves the risk somewhere you can’t see or control.”
Riss recommends separating small amounts you intend to use into a hot wallet, from longer-term holdings in a hardware wallet, and to “actually read what you’re signing rather than approving blind.”
While these precautions can reduce your vulnerability to attack, everyday users can only lock down local issues, and have little ability to affect wider problems.
You can “reduce blast radius,” he says, “not prevent infrastructure compromise.”
So while users can improve their cyber hygiene, ultimately, “the structural burden sits with platforms and providers.”
Magazine: Scammer loses $4.8M stored on tampered Ledgers: Asia Express

Bitcoin treasury company Strategy said Wednesday that shareholders approved amendments allowing its four preferred stocks to pay daily dividends, with 99.3% of votes cast in favor, according to preliminary results.
The amendments cover Strategy’s four preferred securities — STRF, STRC, STRK and STRD — shifting dividend payments from semi-monthly or quarterly schedules to every business day. Dividends will accrue daily, including weekends and holidays, without changing their annual dividend rates.
Strategy expects daily payments on STRC to begin Nov. 2, with STRF, STRK and STRD following on Jan. 4, 2027. Strategy said the changes are designed to shorten the time between earning dividends and receiving cash, while supporting liquidity and price stability in its preferred shares.
Source: Michael Saylor
Strategy’s preferred stocks carry annual dividend rates ranging from 8% to 12%, with STRC offering a variable rate currently set at 12%. The other three securities pay fixed dividends, while STRK also gives investors the option to convert their holdings into Strategy common stock.
Strive expands daily dividend offerings with $630 million raise
Fellow Bitcoin treasury company Strive introduced daily cash dividends on its SATA preferred stock in June, months ahead of Strategy’s planned changes. The company has since launched a second preferred security, SATS, offering a fixed 15% annual dividend rate, with daily payments scheduled to begin Nov. 9, subject to declaration.
Strive closed a $630 million SATS offering on Oct. 20, selling 7 million shares at $90 each. The company said proceeds could be used for Bitcoin purchases and other corporate purposes, but has not disclosed how much it intends to allocate to the cryptocurrency.
Strategy remains the largest publicly traded corporate Bitcoin holder, with 848,517 BTC, while Strive ranks fourth with 43,000 BTC, according to BitcoinTreasuries.net data.
Source: BitcoinTreasuries.NET
Magazine: Crypto could outperform AI stocks: Wall Street veteran Jordi Visser

Bitcoin (BTC) gave back early gains around Wednesday’s Wall Street open as markets prepared for the US Federal Reserve’s interest-rate decision.
Key points:
Bitcoin fell around 0.3% on Wednesday after upside volatility failed to sustain past $81,687.
US stock markets tracked sideways into the run-up to the Federal Open Market Committee’s (FOMC) interest-rate decision and press conference after South Korea’s KOSPI gained 6.6%.
BTC/USD stalled below its 50-day simple moving average at $81,831, which acted as local resistance.
US stocks tread water as focus turns to Fed chair Warsh
Data from TradingView showed BTC/USD failing to break beyond $81,700, instead reversing to as low as $80,297 on Bitstamp. At the time of writing, the pair was down 0.3% on the day.
US stocks opened flat ahead of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting statement and press conference from Fed chair Kevin Warsh. Markets overwhelmingly expected officials to hold rates in their current 3.75-4% range, with the focus instead on Warsh’s language and comments on the economy.
Data from CME Group’s FedWatch Tool showed 90.6% odds of a pause at Wednesday’s FOMC, while the outcome for the December meeting remained a 0.25% rate hike.
Fed target-rate probabilities (screenshot). Source: CME Group
Commenting, Keith Alan, cofounder of crypto trading platform Material Indicators, saw Warsh’s words potentially shifting the December odds. Between the two meetings, traders would be digesting the result of the US midterm elections on Nov. 3.
“Markets may have priced in no rate change, but they haven’t priced in the election outcome,” he summarized on Tuesday.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index did not follow South Korea’s KOSPI Composite Index higher after the KOSPI closed up 6.6%, its best daily gain since July.
Nasdaq Composite Index one-day chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView
In his latest commentary, data analyst Charl van Zyl suggested that the Fed move and the week’s key tech earnings data would materially influence market views of the health of the AI sector.
“Even after a nearly 10% two-day bounce, the index is still 34% below its June 22 record of 9,115. On Monday it closed 40% below that peak,” he noted of the index.
BTC price gains capped by 50-day moving average
After BTC price upside momentum faded, the 50-day simple moving average (SMA) at $81,831 functioned as resistance on low time frames.
“A 4H close below $80,565 reduces the probability of retesting resistance at the 50-Day SMA,” Alan commented.
BTC/USD four-hour chart with 50-day SMA. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView
Analyzing exchange order-book liquidity, onchain analytics platform Glassnode flagged bid liquidity moving further below $80,000, shifting the likely reversal area lower should downside accelerate.
“Only $3.4M in bids remains at $80K. The bids have moved down to $78K-79K, where orders add up to about $42M, up from about $24M in mid-October,” it wrote in the latest edition of its weekly newsletter, The Week Onchain.
“That is the largest block of bids near price, and the first place where we would expect buyers to step in on a dip.”
Bitcoin order-book liquidity heatmap (Binance). Source: Glassnode

The US Federal Election Commission (FEC) filing system is offline after reports of a hack, potentially obscuring expenditures by super political action committees (PACs) and other groups in the final days before the 2026 midterm elections.
As of Tuesday at 7:48 pm UTC, the FEC said it was continuing to experience an “electronic filing system outage,” but was working to resolve the issue. Campaign finance data by PACs and other entities were still available for the public to view, but the system outage suggested that last-minute spending could go unreported.
For example, with just six days until Election Day, FEC filings showed no expenditures from the cryptocurrency industry-aligned Super PACs Fairshake, Defend American Jobs, Protect Progress, Fellowship and Digital Freedom Fund since Sunday. Cointelegraph reached out to Fairshake for comment but did not receive an immediate response.
Super PACs are required to report certain spending to the FEC within 24 hours of the funds being used, provided the expenditures total $1,000 or more. Candidates for House and Senate seats, likewise, are expected to report contributions of $1,000 or more within 48 hours in the 20 days before an election.
Digital Freedom Fund, a PAC launched by Gemini co-founders Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, reported on Sunday that it had spent more than $572,000 on text messages to support various Republican Senate candidates, with the majority going to bolster Ken Paxton’s campaign in Texas. Protect Progress’ most recent expenditure before the FEC outage showed more than $50,000 for a direct mail campaign supporting Representative Aisha Wahab in California’s 14th district.
The 2026 midterms could be consequential for many in the crypto industry who support digital asset laws passing in Congress and state-level legislation and policies. Lawmakers in Congress failed to advance a crypto market structure bill in September, leading to Fairshake and other industry advocates supporting the reelection of those who voted in favor of the legislation.
Reuters reported on Tuesday that the disruption was caused by the FEC website being targeted by a hacker or hackers, according to an email. An FEC spokesperson told Cointelegraph that its IT staff were ”actively working to restore service.”
History repeats itself in Ohio with crypto PAC spending on Senate candidates
In 2024, Fairshake spent about $41 million opposing Senator Sherrod Brown’s reelection bid against Republican Bernie Moreno. The Democratic lawmaker ended up losing his Senate seat, but announced that he would run against incumbent Jon Husted in 2026, leading to another election with money from the crypto industry flowing into attack ads.
Before the FEC outage, Fairshake reported spending $56 million on media to oppose Brown and support Husted, while the Digital Freedom Fund disclosed more than $7 million in expenditures for the same race. The crypto PACs are just some of the groups interested in influencing Ohio voters in the 2026 midterms, with reports of tens of millions of dollars being spent from Democratic- and Republican-aligned organizations.
Magazine: Cybersecurity’s Black October: How to protect yourself

Bitcoin (BTC) gave back early gains around Wednesday’s Wall Street open as markets prepared for the US Federal Reserve’s interest-rate decision.
Key points:
Bitcoin fell around 0.3% on Wednesday after upside volatility failed to sustain past $81,687.
US stock markets tracked sideways into the run-up to the Federal Open Market Committee’s (FOMC) interest-rate decision and press conference after South Korea’s KOSPI gained 6.6%.
BTC/USD stalled below its 50-day simple moving average at $81,831, which acted as local resistance.
US stocks tread water as focus turns to Fed chair Warsh
Data from TradingView showed BTC/USD failing to break beyond $81,700, instead reversing to as low as $80,297 on Bitstamp. At the time of writing, the pair was down 0.3% on the day.
US stocks opened flat ahead of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting statement and press conference from Fed chair Kevin Warsh. Markets overwhelmingly expected officials to hold rates in their current 3.75-4% range, with the focus instead on Warsh’s language and comments on the economy.
Data from CME Group’s FedWatch Tool showed 90.6% odds of a pause at Wednesday’s FOMC, while the outcome for the December meeting remained a 0.25% rate hike.
Fed target-rate probabilities (screenshot). Source: CME Group
Commenting, Keith Alan, cofounder of crypto trading platform Material Indicators, saw Warsh’s words potentially shifting the December odds. Between the two meetings, traders would be digesting the result of the US midterm elections on Nov. 3.
“Markets may have priced in no rate change, but they haven’t priced in the election outcome,” he summarized on Tuesday.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index did not follow South Korea’s KOSPI Composite Index higher after the KOSPI closed up 6.6%, its best daily gain since July.
Nasdaq Composite Index one-day chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView
In his latest commentary, data analyst Charl van Zyl suggested that the Fed move and the week’s key tech earnings data would materially influence market views of the health of the AI sector.
“Even after a nearly 10% two-day bounce, the index is still 34% below its June 22 record of 9,115. On Monday it closed 40% below that peak,” he noted of the index.
BTC price gains capped by 50-day moving average
After BTC price upside momentum faded, the 50-day simple moving average (SMA) at $81,831 functioned as resistance on low time frames.
“A 4H close below $80,565 reduces the probability of retesting resistance at the 50-Day SMA,” Alan commented.
BTC/USD four-hour chart with 50-day SMA. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView
Analyzing exchange order-book liquidity, onchain analytics platform Glassnode flagged bid liquidity moving further below $80,000, shifting the likely reversal area lower should downside accelerate.
“Only $3.4M in bids remains at $80K. The bids have moved down to $78K-79K, where orders add up to about $42M, up from about $24M in mid-October,” it wrote in the latest edition of its weekly newsletter, The Week Onchain.
“That is the largest block of bids near price, and the first place where we would expect buyers to step in on a dip.”
Bitcoin order-book liquidity heatmap (Binance). Source: Glassnode

Crypto wallet provider Phantom has launched prediction markets for eligible US users through an integration with Kalshi, allowing them to trade on crypto prices, sports and other real-world events directly within its app.
According to Wednesday’s announcement, the integration offers CFTC-regulated event contracts, including short-term Bitcoin price markets that settle every 15 minutes. Trades can be funded through Phantom Cash balances, denominated in the CASH stablecoin.
Kalshi handles customer verification, account management and trade execution, while Phantom provides access through its app. The launch follows no-action relief granted by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in March, allowing Phantom to connect users to regulated markets without registering as an introducing broker, subject to certain conditions.
The service is rolling out through a new Predict tab in Phantom, with availability varying by state and market category. Eligible US users can view live market data, sports scores and market discussions before placing trades through an interface similar to a cryptocurrency token swap.
Kalshi’s legal battles continue as trading volumes rise
Phantom’s entry into prediction markets comes amid a widening legal dispute over the industry in the US. On Monday, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission sued Utah after the state challenged Kalshi’s event contracts under its gambling laws, adding to a series of cases over whether federal derivatives regulation supersedes state gambling laws.
Despite the legal uncertainty, trading activity continues to grow. Kalshi recorded $10.8 billion in crypto contract volume over the 30 days ending Oct. 27, up 19.6% from the previous period, according to data compiled by DeFi Rate.
Kalshi trading volume and market share from Sept. 28 to Oct. 27, 2026. Source: DeFi Rate
Magazine: Cybersecurity’s Black October: How to protect yourself

Google’s cloud computing division is progressing with a service that lets financial institutions jointly authorize and sign cryptocurrency transactions without giving any single party control over the full private key.
Google Cloud detailed its Multi-party Compute (MPC) service in documentation updated Monday, positioning the preview product for institutional Bitcoin custody. The service remains in preview, meaning Google provides it as is, with potentially limited support.
The documentation update preceded Google Cloud’s MPC Symposium, taking place Wednesday in New York. The event promises an “exclusive revealing of Google’s frontier MPC product and research projects,” according to its description, and features speakers from financial institutions including Morgan Stanley, OKX, Citi and Wells Fargo.
Google Cloud’s release notes for the service date back to August 2026. On Oct. 1, Google expanded its Bitcoin security rules to evaluate transaction amounts, identify destination address types and detect change outputs.
The Alphabet subsidiary has previously explored related technology through Confidential Space, a cloud environment designed to support secure multi-party computation and data sharing, as described in a June blog post.
Cointelegraph contacted Google Cloud and Rich Widmann, Google’s director of digital assets strategy, for clarification on the service’s availability and launch timeline.

The Depository Trust Company (DTC), a subsidiary of The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), has launched tokenization services enabling eligible users to mint tokenized representations of securities held at DTC.
DTCC Tokenization Service (DTS) will convert between traditional and tokenized forms of securities that are transferable to digital wallets and retain the same ownership rights and investor protections as their traditional counterparts, the company announced on Wednesday.
The company did not elaborate on the criteria for users eligibility. A emailed request for further details was not immediately returned.
The post-trade market infrastructure provider said that 20 of its clients have signed agreements to access the services, including Alpaca, Citadel Securities, Citi, Clear Street, DriveWealth, Fidelity Investments, Interchange Clearing and JPMorgan.
DTC has more than $114 trillion in assets under custody, including stocks and exchange-traded funds. The company said its service will create a “practical path” for tokenized securities adoption.
In December 2025, the US Securities and Exchange Commission issued a “no action” letter stating that it would not recommend enforcement action against DTCC’s subsidiary in relation to its proposed tokenization program.
In May, DTCC said it planned a full service launch of trading of tokenized securities in October 2026, following a July 2026 pilot.
The tokenization service is currently integrated with Canton Network and DTCC’s Besu private network, with plans to add additional blockchain networks in 2027.

Stock exchange operator Euronext suspended CoinShares’ Zcash exchange-traded product (ETP) on Wednesday, when it was scheduled to debut for trading on Euronext Paris.
In a Wednesday notice, the exchange operator said the CoinShares Zcash ETP (ZCSH) was suspended from trading on Euronext Paris until further notice. The notice did not provide a reason for the decision.
CoinShares’ Zcash ETP will remain suspended until “standard settlement operations can be fully supported by the Central Securities Depository (CSD),” Euronext’s press and communications manager, Flavio Bornancin-Tomasella, told Cointelegraph, adding that the measure was strictly limited to “operational settlement requirements.”
The suspension notice delays what would have been the fourth Zcash-based ETP listed in Europe. Other companies that launched Zcash ETPs earlier this year include 21Shares, Virtune and Valor.
CoinShares announced the planned launch of its ZCASH ETP on Euronext Paris earlier on Wednesday. Cointelegraph contacted CoinShares for comment on the matter but did not receive a response by publication.

The Hong Kong arm of Mirae Asset Securities, one of South Korea’s largest securities firms, has issued tokenized notes on Solana to institutional investors.
The transaction involved six-month floating-rate notes issued under the firm’s $3 billion structured note program, according to Wednesday’s announcement. Singapore-based digital market infrastructure operator Marketnode acted as an authorized distributor.
Mirae Asset Securities managed token issuance, payments and the notes’ lifecycle using its internal digital infrastructure. The company said the transaction could provide a model for distributing a wider range of structured products through blockchain-based channels.
The securities firm is part of South Korea’s Mirae Asset Financial Group, whose businesses span brokerage, investment banking, asset management and insurance.
The group has been expanding into digital assets, with affiliate Mirae Asset Consulting acquiring a controlling stake in crypto exchange Korbit in July, which has since rebranded to Digital X.
The group’s asset management arm, Mirae Asset Global Investments, operates the Global X and TIGER exchange-traded fund brands. Its website lists $275 billion in ETF assets under management as of June 2026 and describes its ETF business as the world’s 12th-largest.

Bitcoin (BTC) approached $82,000 on Wednesday as South Korea’s KOSPI Composite Index gained over 6%.
Key points:
Bitcoin reached $81,687 on Wednesday, extending a rebound as bid liquidity thickened around $79,000 and $80,000..
South Korea’s KOSPI Composite Index gained 6.63% as tech stocks rebounded from earlier October losses.
Analysts remained uncertain about where BTC/USD will build its next trading range as resistance stayed intact near $82,000.
BTC price heads higher with KOSPI up 9.3% week-to-date
Data from TradingView showed BTC/USD extending an intraday rebound to reach $81,687 on Bitstamp.
BTC/USD one-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView
The pair avoided new lower lows on hourly time frames as bid liquidity thickened around $79,000, and $80,000, per data from CoinGlass.
BTC liquidation heatmap. Source: CoinGlass
Crypto markets strengthened gradually as nerves over AI spending and debt financing eased. The KOSPI finished Wednesday’s trading session 6.6% higher, returning above 6,000 points for the first time since Oct. 14. The index’s week-to-date upside stood at 9.3%.
KOSPI one-day chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView
In the US, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index closed up 1.1% on Tuesday ahead of major corporate earnings from Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon and Intel. Samsung is due to report Q3 earnings on Thursday.
Speaking to CNBC, Mike Wilson, chief US equity strategist at Morgan Stanley, saw tech stocks entering a new bullish phase on the back of their rebound from a sell-off earlier in October.
“Most of the correction is already over. We’ve been in correction mode for four or five months... the market I think has digested this very efficiently,” he told the network on Tuesday.
Markets continued to expect the Fed to hold rates at its Wednesday meeting, with CME Group’s FedWatch showing 90.6% odds of rates staying in their current 3.75-4% range.
Fed target-rate probabilities comparison for October FOMC meeting (screenshot). Source: CME Group
BTC bear-market comparison puts focus on $82,000 resistance
Commenting on Bitcoin’s repeated dips below $80,000, crypto trader and analyst Rekt Capital drew fresh comparisons to the 2022 bear market.
The weekly chart for BTC/USD resembles 2022’s structure, Rekt Capital said, with it still unclear whether the pair will build a new range above resistance around $82,000.
On weekly time frames, the pair has yet to discard a “macro accumulation range pattern” between $60,000 and $80,000, Rekt Capital added.
BTC/USD one-week chart comparison. Source: Rekt Capital on X.com

US-listed spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) attracted about $176 million in net inflows on Tuesday, extending their recovery to a second consecutive trading day.
The inflows rose from $110 million on Monday, bringing the two-day total to $286 million, according to SoSoValue data.
The rebound followed nearly $774 million in withdrawals on Thursday and Friday. October net outflows narrowed to about $26 million through Tuesday, while year-to-date net inflows stood at roughly $850 million.
Market sentiment also edged higher. Alternative.me’s Crypto Fear & Greed Index rose to 51 from 48 the previous day, remaining in “Neutral” territory. The reading was still below 63, or “Greed,” a week earlier.
Bitcoin (BTC) traded at about $80,818 at the time of publication, up 1.6% over the past 24 hours, according to CoinGecko.
Meanwhile, US spot Ether (ETH) ETFs continued to see withdrawals, recording about $149 million in net outflows on Monday and Tuesday after four straight weeks of net outflows.
Their October net outflows reached $1.32 billion through Tuesday, putting the month on track for the largest net withdrawals since November 2025.

Some Coinbase customers’ contact information was exposed in a security incident at analytics vendor Amplitude, the exchange said Wednesday.
The incident impacted a “small subset” of Coinbase customers, along with other Amplitude clients, Coinbase Support said on X.
Coinbase denied that its own systems had been breached and said customer funds were not affected.
The disclosure adds to Wednesday’s reports of cyberattacks affecting both crypto exchanges and traditional financial firms. In South Korea, Bithumb is investigating whether a breach of its internal work platform exposed customer information, while brokerage Daishin Securities reported a leak of personal and credit information belonging to 38,490 customers.
Cointelegraph contacted Coinbase to find out how many customers were affected but had not received a response by publication.
In May 2025, Coinbase disclosed a separate data breach that impacted less than 1% of its monthly transacting users. The exchange estimated reimbursement and remediation costs at up to $400 million.

Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev says uncertainty over the longevity of US tokenization rules could prevent investors from committing substantial assets to tokenized markets, despite the securities regulator opening a temporary path for onchain stock trading this year.
Speaking during Robinhood’s third-quarter earnings call Tuesday, Tenev welcomed the SEC’s innovation exemption but said further rulemaking or legislation would be needed to provide longer-term regulatory certainty.
“As far as the innovation exemption goes, I think it’s a really positive step... I do think more needs to be done to give people a little bit of certainty because as we talk to customers, I think the uncertainty of what happens in five years is likely to be an impediment to, like, putting serious assets onto this technology.”
Tokenized stock offerings have faced resistance from traditional issuers. Microsoft, Alphabet and Goldman Sachs were among 16 companies that objected to their shares being offered on the proposed OKXICE venue, while AMC CEO Adam Aron separately criticized Robinhood’s tokenized stock products.
Despite the regulatory uncertainty, Binance Research projects that the tokenized equities market could grow to $349 billion by 2030 under its base-case scenario, from $4.43 billion as of Sept. 15.
“So I still think some rule-making or legislation is going to be necessary, even though, of course, it’s a positive step, and we hope to have more to share on our own US tokenization plans in the near future,” said Tenev.
Asked about private-company stock tokens, Tenev said Robinhood intends to launch those products overseas, subject to regulatory arrangements. In the US, Tenev said the company is working to find a path that satisfies current accreditation constraints.
Robinhood offers around 200 stock tokens on Robinhood Chain. The products are backed by underlying shares but structured as tokenized debt securities, providing economic exposure without the same shareholder rights as conventional stocks.
That distinction leaves their current structure outside the SEC’s innovation exemption, which requires equivalent rights, including dividends and voting rights.
Robinhood Crypto revenue falls 55%
Tenev’s comments came as Robinhood reported a 55% year-on-year fall in cryptocurrency revenue to $120 million in the third quarter, while crypto notional trading volume declined 38% to $50 billion.
Trading volume on the Robinhood app fell 48% to $21 billion, while Bitstamp volume fell 28% to $29 billion.
Robinhood’s prediction market business went in the opposite direction. Event-contract revenue rose sixfold to $173 million, while contracts traded increased more than sevenfold to 16.4 billion.
Across the wider business, total net revenue rose 12% to a record $1.42 billion, below analyst expectations. Adjusted earnings per share came in at $0.60, missing estimates by 4 cents.
Magazine: Crypto could outperform AI stocks: Wall Street veteran Jordi Visser

South Korea’s crypto exchange Bithumb is investigating the extent of a data leak caused by a hack of its internal mobile system earlier this week, Yonhap News Agency reported Wednesday.
Bithumb discovered the breach of its in-house mobile system — the platform used by employees to communicate internally — on Tuesday and notified the Korea Internet & Security Agency and the Personal Information Protection Commission that day, according to Yonhap, which cited industry sources.
The exchange is investigating the scope of the attack, including whether member data was leaked.
“We are analyzing the exact scope, including the possibility of member information being involved,” Bithumb told Yonhap. “We will provide an official announcement this morning. However, the internal work system is separated from the virtual asset trading system, so customer virtual assets cannot be accessed through this breach.”
Cointelegraph reached out to Bithumb for further comment.
The incident adds to a recent wave of cyberattacks in Korea’s financial sector.
During a meeting at the Financial Supervisory Authority headquarters on Wednesday, Governor Lee Chan-jin said cyberattacks had hit 16 South Korean financial firms as of Oct. 14.
The Korea Times reports that asset manager Mirae Asset Global Investments and Daishin Securities were also recent victims of cyberattacks.
Daishin Securities said that personal and credit information belonging to 38,490 customers had been leaked. Mirae Asset Global Investments said it had blocked abnormal external access to some web systems and was investigating the incident. The company said investor information was not affected, according to Yonhap.