Grinding out a bottom below $80K: BlackRock is the only ETF buyer
The market remains soft. $BTC It traded back and forth between 79,400 and 80,200 during the day, and was around 79,870 at 7 p.m.—down about 0.5% over 24 hours and 3% for the week. $ETH Around 2,313, then weaker. Fund flows are also diverging: U.S. spot BTC ETFs saw net inflows of $110.3 million on Monday, all into IBIT, while every other fund saw zero flows; ETH ETFs saw another roughly $88.6 million in outflows, bringing October’s total to over $1.1 billion. Institutions are going their separate ways: Strive bought 6,182 BTC in a week, bringing its holdings to 43,000; Strategy made no purchases in the week through 10/25 and still holds 848,517; Bitmine added more than 10,000 ETH.
Canada’s draft stablecoin rules are out: issuers cannot pay interest to holders, and redemption fees are capped at 1%.
The draft was published in the Canada Gazette on 10/24. Each coin must be backed 1:1, with reserves held only in cash, government bonds maturing within 3 months, and corresponding money market funds, in segregated accounts with Canadian custodians.
Holders can redeem at any time, with no minimum amount, and issuers must pay out within 3 business days. The ban on interest also covers indirect profit-sharing by third parties, but transaction rewards based on usage are still allowed.
The central bank will oversee the rules, with the most serious violations carrying fines of up to C$10 million. The consultation period runs until 12/23, and the rules are expected to take effect in fall 2027. Dollar stablecoins like $USDT $USDC looking to enter the Canadian market will have to follow these rules.
Tom Lee’s Bitmine bought another 10,452 $ETH last week. As of 10/25, it held 6,051,933 tokens, or 4.95% of the total supply—just about 58,000 tokens short of its 5% target.
However, its buying is slowing: the week before, it bought 12,535 tokens. This week, it spent $45.9 million to repurchase 2.04 million shares (at an average price of $22.48), bringing its buybacks this year to about $400 million.
About 5.23 million ETH in its holdings has been staked (86%). At the current yield, staking income is about $318 million annualized. It also holds 215 $BTC and $514 million in cash and marketable securities.
Lee said ETH is down 13% from its recent high, while semiconductors are down 20% over the same period: “The bull market is still underway.” Currently, $ETH is about 2,313, down 0.3% over 24 hours.
Ripple has received a U.S. federal trust bank charter. On 10/26, the OCC granted final approval to Ripple National Trust Bank (New York), less than a year after granting conditional approval on 12/12 last year.
The new bank will manage RLUSD’s segregated reserves, serve as reserve custodian and trustee for holders, and provide crypto custody services to businesses. Under the terms of its trust charter, it cannot take deposits or make loans.
RLUSD will continue to be issued by Standard Custody & Trust, which is regulated by New York’s NYDFS. This means issuance remains under state regulation, while reserves and custody gain an additional layer of federal oversight. RLUSD currently has a market capitalization of about $2.58 billion.
The token price reaction was muted: $XRP is at about $1.30, up 1.4% over 24 hours, and remains below its 50-day and 200-day moving averages.
Galaxy Head of Research Alex Thorn issued a report on Monday, boldly calling the bottom: $BTC This bear market ended in June, and we’re now in an accumulation phase. “It’s a good time to buy and hold.”
Reason one: BTC spent 44 weeks below its 50-week moving average, reclaimed it in September, and as of 10/18 had closed above it for five consecutive weeks. Even the worst weekly close in June was only 4.7% below the 200-week moving average.
Reason two: Since 2011, the pattern of “falling below the 50-week moving average for more than 20 weeks, then reclaiming it” has occurred four times. In each case, the maximum drawdown over the following year was no more than 8.4%, and the price was up 55% to 1497% a year later.
The report also specifies a stop-loss level: if the weekly price falls back below the 50-week moving average (around 76540) and fails to recover it within a month, the thesis is considered invalidated.
$BTC BTC is currently around 79700, only about 4% above that level, making this a key price area ahead of the rate decision. Galaxy and Thorn himself both hold BTC.
Strive bought 6,182 $BTC last week (10/17–10/23), spending about $511.4 million at an average price of around $82,732—the largest single-week increase in its holdings ever.
Its holdings rose from 36,818 to 43,000 BTC. As of 10/23, its total cost was about $3.8 billion, with a fair value of about $3.5 billion. Its average purchase price including fees was around $87,785, so the position is still at an unrealized loss overall.
That same day, it launched a $1 billion SATS preferred stock ATM (with a 15% annual dividend; closing at $94.88 on 10/23). The proceeds can be used to buy more crypto, and the first dividend payment is scheduled for 11/9.
$BTC is now around $79,900, about 3% below the average price of these purchases. Strive is essentially catching a falling knife.
The $80,000 tug-of-war: Price grinds along the ETF cost basis
Prices are grinding sideways as leverage unwinds—$BTC BTC briefly fell below $80,000 in early Asian trading on Monday, hitting a low of around $79,300 before recovering to about $80,190 that evening, leaving it essentially flat over 24 hours. $ETH About 2,324 and $SOL about 101, moving sideways; compared with around $84,000 at the open last Thursday, BTC is still down about 4%. The $80,000 area is significant: Glassnode’s October 21 report puts the cost basis for spot ETFs and publicly listed companies between $80,000 and $81,500, a range that has already provided support once this month. Funding flows have yet to recover: BTC spot ETFs saw combined outflows of about $773 million last Thursday and Friday. Monday’s figures won’t be available until after the U.S. market closes tonight.
Ripple's annual conference, Swell, opens tomorrow (10/27) in New York and runs for three days. This is the 10th edition, with an expected attendance of 1,500 people.
For the first time this year, Swell, the XRPL developer summit Apex, and the university research meeting UBRI Connect are being held together. Topics include the first anniversary of the listing of spot XRP ETFs, AI agent payments, and the RLUSD stablecoin.
On stage will be BNY's market head, executives from ICE and Robinhood's crypto business, and Bullish CEO Tom Farley. Ripple itself says Swell has always been the place where it announces major products and partnerships.
In the market, XRP is around $XRP at about $1.29 (24h -0.6%), and New York subways are already covered with XRP ads. Whether the conference can bring any incremental upside will become clear over these three days.
$BTC Bitcoin briefly fell below 80,000 during early Asian trading on Monday, with CoinDesk data showing a low of around 79,800. It is now around 80,040 (24h -1%).
$ETH Ethereum fell nearly 3% to just above 2,300, and is now around 2,320; $SOL XRP is barely holding above 100, at around 101.
The Fed announces its rate decision on Wednesday. CME FedWatch puts the odds of rates holding at 3.75%–4% at around 90.6%. What the market is really watching for is whether Chair Warsh will hint at a rate hike in December.
The broader market isn't helping either: Goldman Sachs cut its 12-month target for the Kospi by 25%, South Korean stocks fell 1%, and Asian AI stocks continued to sell off.
The 82,500 level, lost last Thursday, is the first key resistance bulls need to reclaim. PCE data is also due this week, on 10/29.
The date for Zcash’s NU7 mainnet upgrade is set: activation height 3,543,405, expected around 08:50 Beijing time on November 6 (the official roadmap says around November 5).
The biggest change is that block times will drop from 75 seconds to 25 seconds, making the network 3 times faster.
The economic model is changing too: 60% of the fees from each block will go into a reserve, while miners receive 40%. The reserve will be paid out later at fixed intervals. The four-year halving schedule and 21 million coin cap will remain unchanged.
Zebra 7.0.0 and Zakura 1.7.0 have been released. Mainnet nodes must upgrade before activation, and older versions of Zakura will shut down a few days before activation.
$ZEC is currently trading at around $1,190, down 1.7% over 24 hours.
India’s largest exchange, CoinDCX, has acknowledged a loss of about $16 million: 15.99 million $USDT was transferred out of a batch of decommissioned TRON deposit addresses. The company covered the loss itself, and all user deposits have been credited.
These addresses were old wallets retired after the roughly $44 million hack in July 2025, but some users continued depositing funds into them. CoinDCX said its automatic sweeping service was temporarily down, allowing funds to accumulate before they were transferred out all at once starting October 21.
The awkward part: CEO Sumit Gupta said on X just last week that this was a “false alarm.” Blockchain investigator ZachXBT then pointed out that the address was still sweeping funds into an active hot wallet as recently as April and May 2026.
A reminder: before each deposit, copy the latest address again from the app. Don’t use an old address you’ve saved.
BNB Chain plans to launch a new L1: it won’t replace BSC—the two chains will run in parallel, connected by a native cross-chain bridge.
The target specs are ambitious: 200 ms block times, around 20 ms pre-confirmation, sub-second finality, and 100,000+ TPS. For comparison, BSC only reduced its block time to 450 ms in the first half of this year.
No new token: $BNB will continue to serve as the gas, staking, and governance asset. CZ summed it up in one line: “Multiple chains, one coin.”
The focus is on high-frequency trading, on-chain order books, real-time payments, and AI agents, as well as native privacy transactions and account abstraction. It’s currently an internal multi-validator development network, with a public testnet planned for the end of 2026 and mainnet for early 2027.
$BNB is currently around $737.6, down 0.6% over the past 24 hours.
$BTC It briefly fell to around 79,150 on Saturday night, its lowest since September 18; during the day today, it bounced back to around 80,900, then fell again in the evening to about 80,180, down 0.5% over 24 hours. Altcoins were weaker: $ETH around 2,323 (-1.9%), with a weekend low of about 2,285; $SOL around 100.6, still holding above the 100 mark. Leverage got flushed first: 24-hour liquidations topped $800 million, including about $690 million in long positions (Coinglass). Flows offered little support either: BTC spot ETFs saw about $770 million in outflows on Thursday and Friday; ETH ETFs recorded cumulative outflows of about $485 million from 10/14 to 10/22. However, Santiment data shows that about 170,000 ETH flowed out of exchanges on 10/23 alone, the most in over four months.
South Korea delays crypto income tax for the fourth time: A presidential office official said on the 25th that the crypto tax, originally scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2027, will be postponed again.
The tax rules themselves remain unchanged: gains from selling or lending crypto assets over the course of a year will be taxed at 22% (including local tax) after a basic allowance of 2.5 million won. Since the law was passed in 2020, the start date has been pushed back from 2022 to 2023, 2025, and then 2027.
A key reason for this latest delay is that the U.S. will not join CARF (the Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework for the automatic cross-border exchange of crypto transaction information) until 2029. Introducing the tax now would concentrate the burden on users of domestic South Korean exchanges. In addition, none of South Korea’s five largest exchanges has yet completed its tax-reporting system.
The ruling party has proposed moving the start date to 2029, and the People Power Party also supports a delay. The law is expected to be amended during tax law deliberations in November. $BTC is currently around 80500, down 0.2% over 24 hours.
Franklin Templeton’s two “dividends into $BTC ” ETFs have moved a step closer to launch: on 10/22, it filed an 8-A form with the SEC, registering FBEQ and FIBT on Nasdaq. The registration takes effect on 10/27; the exact trading date has not yet been announced.
The strategy is straightforward: FBEQ tracks the 500 largest U.S. companies by market capitalization, starting with 95% stocks and 5% Bitcoin. All dividends paid by its holdings will be converted into BTC at the market open on the day after the ex-dividend date.
So the Bitcoin allocation will keep growing. At quarterly rebalancing, if it exceeds 5%, it will be cut back to 4.5%. If it surges past 20% between rebalances, it will also be cut back to 4.5%.
The $1.8 trillion asset manager already has a spot ETF, EZBC, with about $467 million in assets. BTC is currently around $80,850, essentially flat over the past 24 hours.
On Saturday night, $BTC briefly fell below $80,000, reaching around $79,280 at about 23:20 Beijing time—the lowest level since 9/18. It has since recovered to around $80,780, basically flat over the past 24 hours.
The drop mainly wiped out bullish traders: CoinGlass data shows that $436 million was liquidated in the four-hour period on Saturday, including $404 million in long positions—the most since 10/14. More than $800 million was liquidated across the market in 24 hours, affecting over 200,000 traders.
$ETH fell even harder, briefly reaching around $2,289, a two-month low. ETH liquidations totaled $137 million over four hours, nearly matching BTC. It is now trading around $2,361.
The catalyst came from the Middle East: the WSJ reported an emergency evacuation of U.S. personnel from the region, while BTC ETFs saw combined outflows of around $773 million on Thursday and Friday. BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes also said he had “sold all” of his fund’s directional positions.
The Fed’s rate decision is due on 10/27–28, and PCE data will be released on 10/29. Whether $80,000 holds is key.
The U.S. IRS is opening a fast track for catching up on crypto tax filings.
Jarod Koopman, head of the IRS Criminal Investigation division, said at a tax controversy conference at UCLA on 10/23 that the revised Voluntary Disclosure Program (VDP) is expected to launch before December. Cases will be closed within 120 days of submitting all required documents, whereas the process often takes more than a year now.
Penalties will be significantly reduced, and installment plans and settlement options are also being considered, so taxpayers won’t have to pay the full amount all at once. The specific reductions and eligibility requirements have not yet been announced.
Crypto won’t have a separate program; it will follow the same process as other unreported income. Those who failed to report income unintentionally may use other channels, such as amended returns.
Under the old VDP, the year with the largest tax deficiency was subject to a civil fraud penalty of up to 75%—one reason few people were willing to come forward voluntarily in the past. $BTC is now around 80,800, and has been essentially flat over the past 24 hours.
$USDT is returning to the Bitcoin mainnet: Utexo has opened Utexo Mint, allowing exchanges, wallets, and market makers to try minting, private transfers, and redemptions on the Bitcoin Signet testnet. It officially launches on November 28 through partner wallets and exchanges.
This version of USDT uses the RGB protocol and is a bridged version, backed by USDT0 reserves locked on Arbitrum. Transfer details are private by default, but can be selectively disclosed to meet compliance requirements.
The second phase is planned to integrate with the Lightning Network in Q1 2027, with a focus on near-instant payments. Utexo raised $7.5 million in a seed round this March, with Tether among the lead investors.
USDT got its start on Bitcoin back in 2014, so this is a sort of “coming home.” $BTC is currently around $80,870, essentially flat over the past 24 hours.
Weekend gets off to a weak start, with BTC holding just above $80K
Markets are soft—$BTC after U.S. stocks closed on Friday, BTC fell below $81,000, touching a low of around $80,418 on Kraken, its lowest since 10/15. It is now around $80,600 (down 1.1% over 24 hours). $ETH Around 2,369 (-1.0%), $SOL around 101.6 (-2.2%). Weekend liquidity is thin, so volatility can be amplified. Flows are cooling too: U.S. spot BTC ETFs saw $137.9 million in net outflows on Friday, marking a second consecutive day of outflows. For the week, however, they still posted net inflows of around $300 million. Macroeconomic headwinds weighed on markets: the Dow fell 1.18% on Friday, the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield neared 4.99%, and Brent crude hit a more-than-five-month high.
Franklin Templeton has added about $150 million worth of tokenized money market fund shares (sgBENJI) to the XRP Ledger: on Wednesday, two subscription receipts worth $75 million each were recorded on-chain, with the funds arriving in two batches on Thursday.
The on-chain share total surged from about 48 million to nearly 193 million, almost quadrupling. At a share price of $1.039, that amounts to roughly $200 million.
Interestingly, all the shares are held in a single wallet, which shares the same set of eight signing addresses as the issuer account. Franklin has yet to respond on whether this is a single investor or an omnibus account for multiple clients.
According to RWA.xyz rankings, Franklin is now the second-largest tokenized asset platform on XRPL, behind only RLUSD (about $930 million) and ahead of Ondo (about $185 million). $XRP is currently trading at around $1.29, down about 2.7% over the past 24 hours.