1. Dragonfly Partner: Crypto Industry Is on the Front Lines of a Global Wave of Hacking
Dragonfly Managing Partner Haseeb Qureshi said that global cybersecurity is facing a wave of hacking attacks resembling the COVID-19 pandemic, and the crypto industry is experiencing this trend first. He believes that because on-chain attacks are the easiest to monetize directly, security incidents involving crypto protocols can be viewed as an early warning of cybersecurity risks across the entire internet. The number of hacks in the crypto industry has surged, but the annualized total value of stolen funds is roughly on par with 2025, indicating that the average loss per attack has declined. Haseeb noted that attackers are focusing on smaller DeFi protocols with weak security measures and inadequate maintenance, while larger protocols have begun using AI tools to strengthen their defenses. He expects a similar trend of large-scale attacks to spread to the traditional internet industry as well.
2. U.S. initial jobless claims for the week ending October 17 came in at 194,000, versus expectations of 200,000
U.S. initial jobless claims for the week ending October 17 came in at 194,000, versus expectations of 200,000 and a previous reading of 199,000.
3. a16z removes the word “Crypto” from its flagship fund name
Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) plans to remove the word “Crypto” from the name of its flagship blockchain fund and expand its investment focus beyond cryptocurrency. In addition, one of the fund’s founding members will leave. It remains unclear whether the changes will affect its existing crypto investment business. a16z Crypto is one of the largest venture capital firms in the crypto industry. In May this year, it raised $2.2 billion for its fifth crypto fund, about half the $4.5 billion raised for its fourth fund in 2022. Its five crypto funds have raised a total of approximately $9.8 billion.
4. CZ warns that a critical PHP vulnerability is being actively exploited: exercise extra caution when visiting websites in the coming days
Binance founder CZ warned people to exercise extra caution when visiting websites in the coming days, as some site administrators may not have installed security patches in time. He said PHP, which is widely used by web applications such as WordPress and Magento, patched two critical vulnerabilities (CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619) on October 21. Information about the vulnerabilities had leaked before their official disclosure, and they were later found to be actively exploited. Under certain conditions, attackers may be able to execute malicious code remotely without authentication and take control of vulnerable website servers, increasing risks such as the theft of user credentials.
5. Ethereum community proposes a “Decoupled Consensus” draft to support quantum-resistant upgrades and faster transaction confirmation
A core protocol draft called “Decoupled Consensus” has appeared in the Ethereum EIP repository. It proposes separating beacon chain head votes from finality votes to improve fork-choice security, shorten finalization times, and lay the groundwork for a future transition to post-quantum cryptography. The proposal was co-authored by Francesco D'Amato, Roberto Saltini, Yann Vonlanthen, Mikhail Kalinin, Ben Edgington, and others. It remains at an early draft stage, with several details yet to be determined. For now, the submitters primarily hope to obtain an EIP number. The proposal is awaiting further review and has not yet been merged.