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1. Robinhood Chain Hits 100 Days: DEX Volume Tops $99B, TVL Exceeds $1B link
Robinhood Crypto released operating data for Robinhood Chain roughly 100 days after launch. As of October 12, the chain’s cumulative DEX trading volume exceeded $99 billion, TVL surpassed $1 billion, and deposits on Morpho topped $1 billion. For stock tokens, more than 190 stock tokens have been launched with 200,000 holders across over 120 countries, and the related DEX has recorded around $15 billion in cumulative trading volume. Robinhood stated that its chain has maintained the highest daily active traders among all L2s since launch.
2. ZKsync Unveils Airbender Prime Ethereum ZK Prover; 99% Blocks Proven in Under 10s link
ZKsync announced the launch of Airbender Prime, its zero-knowledge prover for Ethereum. ZKsync test data shows that with a single NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell GPU, Airbender Prime generated proofs for a consecutive batch of 7,200 Ethereum mainnet blocks. 99% of block proofs took less than 10 seconds, and all blocks were completed within 12 seconds including witness preparation time. Built on the open RISC-V standard and adopting hash-based STARK proof technology, the prover is designed for post-quantum security and comes with a standalone verifier to enable independent verification.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin published a post congratulating the ZKsync Airbender team on the technical milestone. He stated that the competition over proof speed for zkEVMs has reached decisive results, and the top priority going forward should fully shift to security. He argued zkEVMs should focus on three issues via formal verification: guaranteeing the arithmetic scheme used by the proof system is fully equivalent to Ethereum protocol specifications; setting strict upper bounds on proof generation costs corresponding to block gas consumption; and verifying the security of the zero-knowledge proof system itself. This means after major breakthroughs in proof performance, the next phase of zkEVM development will shift from speed optimization to security assurance.
3. Starknet Launches Shadow Accounts Privacy Feature, First Live App Oct 15 link
Starknet launched Shadow Accounts, a privacy feature that allows users to participate in public DeFi activities through separate addresses while concealing the link between these addresses and their main wallets. Shadow Accounts are funded by privacy-protected STRK20 balances. Their balances, transaction records and protocol positions remain publicly visible on-chain, yet the connection to the main wallet is privacy-shielded. Planned use cases include liquidity provision, trading position opening, cross-chain asset deposits and collateralized lending. The first integrated application will go live on October 15, with more integrations to follow gradually.
4. Aptos Encrypted Mempool Goes Live to Mitigate Front-Running and MEV Risks link
Aptos announced that the Encrypted Mempool feature has officially launched on mainnet. The feature allows users to selectively encrypt the call functions and parameters of pending transactions on an individual basis. Validators collaboratively decrypt and execute transactions after ordering and finalizing blocks to mitigate front-running and other MEV attack risks. Natively integrated into the Aptos consensus protocol, it requires no additional trusted third parties, though the sender address and gas fees remain public. Petra Wallet now supports this feature, and perpetual trading platform Decibel plans to integrate it at a later stage.
5. ENS DAO Proposes ENSv2 Mainnet Activation; No Mandatory .eth Migration link
nick.eth, representative of ENS DAO, submitted an executable proposal draft to enable ENSv2 on Ethereum mainnet. The plan is to halt new .eth domain registrations under ENSv1 and transfer ownership of the original registration contract to a renewal-only contract. Upon proposal execution, ENS Labs will complete synchronization of existing domain data, open ENSv2 registrations and switch domain resolution services, before eventually handing over full administrative control of ENSv2 to ENS DAO. ENSv2 adopts a layered registry architecture and enables more granular subdomain permission management. Existing .eth domains are not subject to mandatory migration and may continue to be used and renewed, yet migration to ENSv2 is irreversible.
6. PancakeSwap Proposes 88% LP Fee Split and 69% Cut in Daily CAKE Emissions link
PancakeSwap proposes to uniformly raise the liquidity provider (LP) fee split for v3 and Infinity across all 11 supported chains to 88%, with protocol fees reduced to 12% and directed to the treasury, while v2 remains unchanged. Based on 2025 trading volume estimates, LPs are expected to gain an additional approximately $62 million in fees. Trading rates for users stay unchanged, yet liquidity depth is projected to increase by up to around 30%, and price impact may drop by roughly 20%–25%. Meanwhile, the proposal plans to cut daily CAKE emissions from 22,500 to 7,000 tokens, a reduction of about 69%. All 7,000 daily tokens will be allocated to Pantry, the ecosystem growth fund, cutting minting volume by approximately 5.7 million CAKE per year. The total CAKE supply has fallen by 11.5% since Tokenomics 3.0 passed in April 2025, and the proposal expects to maintain the target of a roughly 20% supply reduction by 2030. Implementation is scheduled to kick off in November 2026, starting two weeks after proposal approval. The rollout is estimated to take about three months and finish by the end of January 2027. The proposal is currently under community discussion and will later be submitted for Snapshot voting.
7. Osmosis Community Proposal to Halt OSMO Inflation Issuance link
The Osmosis community has put forward a proposal to terminate OSMO inflation issuance. The plan is to halt daily new token minting and suspend the daily unlocking of developer tokens, so staking rewards will be fully funded by protocol trading fees and other revenues. Currently, the relevant module distributes approximately 121,800 OSMO per day, of which around 9,740 go to staking rewards, 30,400 are unlocked from existing developer tokens, and the remaining 81,600 flow into the community pool. If the proposal passes, roughly 51.9 million locked OSMO allocated to developers will remain locked, and any future release will require a separate governance vote.
8. Lido Integrates Native Staking on Four Major L2s for Direct ETH-to-wstETH Swap link
Liquid staking protocol Lido announced that it has integrated native direct ETH staking functionality from four major Layer 2 networks, Arbitrum, Base, Linea and Optimism, into its official staking frontend. Powered by Chainlink Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP), this feature enables users to directly swap ETH for wstETH locally on the L2 without manually bridging ETH back to Ethereum mainnet. The ETH deposited by users is redeemed for wstETH via dedicated local liquidity pools, with the exchange rate pegged to the official protocol ratio by Chainlink price feeds instead of secondary market prices. The underlying deposited ETH is automatically bridged to Ethereum mainnet through CCIP to join Lido staking, and wstETH is relayed back via each L2’s native bridge to replenish pool liquidity.
9. Blur to Shut Frontend in Nov 2026; Blend Halts New Loans link
NFT trading platform Blur announced it will shut down its frontend interface on November 12, 2026, while the on-chain market protocol will remain operational, and the BLUR token retains control over the protocol fee switch. Its NFT lending protocol Blend will stop matching new loans on the same date. Borrowers must repay loans before the deadline; otherwise, loans will default. Afterwards, Blur will provide frontend tools for users to withdraw assets from Blend. Partially driven by this news, BLUR plunged sharply in the short term, hitting a low of 0.01405 USDT and now trading at 0.01548 USDT, with a 24-hour drop of approximately 15.31%. Blur completed an $11 million seed round in March 2022, with investors including Paradigm, eGirl Capital and 0xMaki.
0xQuit, Vice President of Blockchain at Yuga Labs, reminded users to revoke NFT approvals granted to Blur contracts as soon as possible. He stated that NFTs worth tens of millions of dollars are still approved for Blur contracts. Although his investigation uncovered no vulnerabilities in the current contracts, the contracts are upgradeable and malicious logic could be introduced through future upgrades. 0xQuit noted that the Blur team appears to be winding down operations, and the security of the associated NFTs largely depends on the operational status of the team. He recommended users immediately revoke approvals via tools such as revoke.cash to guard against potential contract bugs or malicious upgrade risks.
10. Network School to Acquire Farcaster; Most Neynar Team Continues Development link
Rish, co-founder of Neynar, announced that Network School will acquire decentralized social protocol Farcaster. Farcaster applications, protocol codebase and related products will be transferred to Network School. Most members of the Neynar team will join Network School to continue developing Farcaster, while Rish, Manan and part of the team will depart to pursue new endeavours.
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According to The Defiant, Bitget will discontinue services for certain users, with account-specific deadlines and withdrawal instructions sent directly to those affected. The exchange described it as a one-off exercise, said user funds remain safe, and noted that users who receive no notification can continue using their accounts under its terms. Its official support account also cited the prohibited-jurisdiction list when responding to restrictions on Russian users. One affected user reported an Oct. 21 deadline, but Bitget's main announcement gave no common deadline, affected account count or specific regulatory basis.

On October 16 (ET), spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded total net outflows of $82.39 million, led by BlackRock's IBIT with $71.78 million in net outflows. Spot Ethereum ETFs recorded total net outflows of $69.68 million, marking their third consecutive day of net outflows, with all of the day's net outflows coming from BlackRock's ETHA.

Star Xu: Bitcoin Nearly Died Several Times, but Crypto Emerged Stronger
In an interview on the New Era Finance Podcast, OKX founder and CEO Star Xu recalled Bitcoin's early forks and hash power attacks, the collapse of Mt. Gox, disagreements over scaling, and the later FTX incident. He said Bitcoin had nearly "died" several times and that resolving industry crises could take months or even a year. In his view, once those problems are resolved, the industry becomes better, bigger, and stronger than before.

a16z Crypto Partner: Finance Remains Blockchain's Clearest Near-Term Application Opportunity
a16z Crypto General Partner Guy Wuollet said in an October 6 interview on the official a16z crypto channel that blockchain's clearest near-term opportunities remain in finance, particularly stablecoins and perpetuals. a16z is also focused on payments, lending, credit, exchanges, prediction markets, derivatives, crypto-AI, and wealth management. Wuollet said stablecoin demand is driven by payment efficiency and demand for U.S. dollars in high-inflation or capital-controlled markets. He sees stablecoins and blockchains as driving finance's digital transformation, much as cloud services transformed enterprise IT.

a16z Crypto Partner: Finance Remains Blockchain's Clearest Near-Term Application Opportunity
a16z Crypto General Partner Guy Wuollet said in an October 6 interview on the official a16z crypto channel that blockchain's clearest near-term opportunities remain in finance, particularly stablecoins and perpetuals. a16z is also focused on payments, lending, credit, exchanges, prediction markets, derivatives, crypto-AI, and wealth management. Wuollet said stablecoin demand is driven by payment efficiency and demand for U.S. dollars in high-inflation or capital-controlled markets. He sees stablecoins and blockchains as driving finance's digital transformation, much as cloud services transformed enterprise IT.

On October 16, Anthropic published research showing that Claude Mythos 5, assisted by an automated evaluation system, optimized eight quantum circuit design tasks spanning quantum chemistry, optimization, physics simulation, and number theory, producing new designs that outperform previously published methods. Claude developed a reversible modular inversion algorithm that eliminates the need to store branch history. One elliptic-curve point addition circuit uses approximately 17 times fewer quantum gates while requiring 12% more qubits. Another improvement reduced the gate count of Reed–Solomon decoding circuits in the quantum optimization algorithm DQI by approximately 12 times. The results remain at the quantum circuit design and verification stage and have not yet been validated on actual quantum hardware.

Former Mt. Gox CEO Mark Karpelès said Ledger had received reports of hardware wallets tampered with and fitted with malicious components since at least December 2025, but he had seen no subsequent public warning. Security researcher Joe Grand said he reported a compromised Nano X purchased through Lazada in Thailand on March 4, 2026, which Ledger acknowledged and said it was investigating internally. A security incident disclosed on October 9 involved devices sold by authorized Southeast Asian reseller CryptoBilis. Karpelès urged Ledger to warn users more proactively as similar reports increase and attacks grow more sophisticated.

Digital asset custody provider Cobo announced that its Cobo Wallet App will shut down on December 1 as part of a strategic business adjustment. Users must withdraw all assets by November 30 at 11:59 PM (UTC+8). Any remaining assets will incur a monthly management fee of 2%, with a minimum charge of $100. Accounts holding less than $100 will have their entire remaining balance deducted. The first fee will be charged on January 1, 2027, and fees will continue until all assets are withdrawn or depleted. Cobo emphasized that its other businesses will remain unaffected and continue operating normally.

Ledger confirmed a hardware tampering attack involving a Southeast Asian reseller, Solana scheduled its Alpenglow mainnet upgrade targeting 150ms finality, and US inflation rose to 3.7%, above expectations. This week also saw a UK court ruling involving 61,000 BTC, new crypto regulations in Australia, and BitMine's ETH holdings nearing 5% of total supply. For the complete weekly roundup, subscribe to our Substack.

Circle disclosed that it generated approximately $1.4 billion in revenue in the first half of 2026, of which $819 million (59%) went to USDC distribution partners and transaction costs. Another $473 million (34%) was spent on licensing, banking relationships, settlement liquidity, compliance, and product development, leaving approximately 7% as net profit.
Circle also stated that customers using the Circle Payments Network (CPN) and eligible Circle Platform customers can now access free, near-real-time USDC redemptions around the clock. USDC recorded more than $36 trillion in on-chain transaction volume in H1 2026, accounting for approximately 77% of global stablecoin transaction volume in June, according to Circle.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin showcased his personal privacy-focused AI agent setup, integrating zkAPI, Tor, random cover traffic, and local LLM prompt rewriting into the pi agent harness. The system assigns each conversation a separate Tor circuit, uses zkAPI to protect payment privacy, and rewrites prompts locally with a Qwen model. Vitalik said the setup is becoming usable but still suffers from significant latency, especially when starting new conversations, while Tor remains vulnerable to timing-correlation attacks involving colluding providers and entry nodes. He suggested that a specialized mixnet may offer stronger protection and added that lower gas costs for zkAPI deposits and withdrawals on Ethereum mainnet are coming soon.

According to Reuters, Deutsche Bank, Germany's largest bank, plans to launch cryptocurrency custody services within weeks and expand into Asian financial hubs in 2027. Gerald Podobnik, co-head of its corporate bank, said the service will initially support major cryptocurrencies such as BTC and ETH, with plans to add fiat-to-stablecoin conversion services. The bank also intends to offer tokenized deposits and help clients issue blockchain-based securities, including digital bonds, as part of its broader corporate banking growth strategy.

1. US September CPI Tops Estimates, YoY Rate Hits 3.7%, Highest Since May link
US September unadjusted CPI YoY came in at 3.7%, the highest since May this year and above market expectations of 3.6%. US September unadjusted CPI MoM stood at 0.6%, the highest since April this year. US September unadjusted core CPI YoY rose to 2.6%, the highest since June this year and above market forecasts of 2.5%. US September seasonally adjusted core CPI MoM printed at 0.3%, exceeding market expectations of 0.2%.
2. Democratic Midterm Win May Spur Probes Into Crypto Firms’ Trump Links link
Reuters reported that if Democrats gain control of either the U.S. House of Representatives or the Senate in the November midterm elections, they may ramp up investigations into crypto firms, prediction markets and Wall Street banks, and obtain the power to subpoena regulators and corporate CEOs to testify at congressional hearings. Democratic lawmakers are prepared to probe the business ties between Trump and his family with the cryptocurrency and prediction market industries, focusing on potential conflicts of interest and national security risks. The report notes that such investigations may not block the Trump administration’s financial regulatory rollbacks, yet they could slow policy advancement and raise legal and reputational risks for enterprises.
3. France Pushes EU-Wide Crypto Tax to Fill €2 Trillion Budget Gap link
Leaders of the 27 EU member states launched negotiations on the long-term budget for 2028–2034 on October 15, with sharp disagreements among countries over the budget size and new tax revenue sources. France opposes deep budget cuts and calls for new EU-wide taxes covering digital services, crypto assets and online gambling to boost common fiscal revenue. The European Parliament previously proposed exploring taxes on capital gains from crypto assets as a potential new revenue stream for the EU budget. EU leaders aim to strike a deal by the end of the year, and any new taxes require unanimous approval from all member states.
4. UK High Court: Chinese Law Applies to 61,000 BTC Claim; Victims May Miss Value Gains link
The High Court of England and Wales handed down a ruling on October 12 in a cross-border asset recovery dispute involving more than 61,000 Bitcoins linked to the Tianjin Lantian Gerui illegal fund-raising case. It held that Chinese investors’ property claims over the involved Bitcoins should be determined under Chinese law rather than English law. This means around 16,000 Chinese victims participating in the UK recovery proceedings may not be entitled to the appreciation gains from the rise in Bitcoin price, and the scope of recovery may be limited to principal and interest.
5. BoE Deputy Governor: No Rush for CBDC, Backs Domestic Stablecoins Over USD Variants link
Sarah Breeden, Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, stated that given rapid innovation in digital payments, the United Kingdom does not need to rush to launch a central bank digital currency (CBDC) for the general public. Commercial stablecoins and bank tokenized deposits may deliver some of the same functions as a digital pound. Breeden stressed that the Bank of England wants domestic firms to develop successful sterling stablecoins to offer an alternative to a market dominated by US dollar stablecoins, preventing UK households and businesses from relying solely on US dollar stablecoins for innovative payment services. The Bank of England is also upgrading its real-time gross settlement system to support tokenized financial transactions and round-the-clock instant settlement.
6. Australian Crypto Exchanges to Be Licensed Under New Rules Effective Next April link
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) announced on October 15 that Australia will implement a new digital asset regulatory framework on April 8, 2027, bringing digital asset trading platforms and tokenised custody platforms under financial services licensing oversight. Relevant platforms must apply for or vary an Australian Financial Services (AFS) licence and comply with regulatory requirements including client disclosure, asset custody, trade settlement and net tangible assets. ASIC has released Consultation Paper 392 seeking feedback on detailed implementation standards, with submissions closing on November 27. ASIC stated it has received over 140 licence applications for digital asset financial services, of which more than 110 were lodged during the regulatory transition period from October 2025 to September 2026.
7. Brazil Securities Regulator Launches Tokenized Securities Pilot for Blockchain Stock Trading link
Brazil’s securities regulator CVM issued Resolution №249 to launch a tokenized securities pilot programme. It intends to test securities transactions on blockchain using simulated stocks and funds within a controlled environment, with no real assets involved. The pilot will assess the suitability of public and private blockchains for securities issuance and operations, alongside risks related to smart contracts, cybersecurity, interoperability and network resilience. It will also explore translating market rules into smart contract logic. Brazilian stock exchange B3 plans to launch its tokenized platform in 2027, paired with its own stablecoin.
8. Ledger Confirms Supply Chain Hardware Tampering Attack on SEA Distributor CryptoBilis link
Ledger Donjon, the security team of hardware wallet manufacturer Ledger, published an article formally confirming a supply-chain hardware tampering attack targeting devices sold by Southeast Asian distributor CryptoBilis. Ledger emphasized that all confirmed theft cases to date only involve units sold by CryptoBilis, with no abnormalities found in other sales channels. Widely circulated figures of heavy losses online are third-party estimates and have not been fully verified by the official team. The firm warned users who purchased devices from CryptoBilis but have not initialized them not to power them up for setup, while those who have completed setup should immediately transfer assets to a wallet with a brand-new seed phrase.
According to Cointelegraph, major European consumer electronics retail group MediaMarktSaturn has removed all Ledger hardware wallet products from its physical stores and online platforms. A spokesperson for the group confirmed the measure and stated that it is in communication with Ledger. Earlier, X user Johannes claimed unauthorized installed cables and cellular communication modules were found in two Ledger wallets he bought from separate MediaMarkt stores.
In Ledger’s official response, as of October 13, European electronics retail group MediaMarktSaturn has suspended sales of Ledger devices across its stores and online platforms with Ledger’s cooperation. The suspension follows a report by a German consumer discovering suspected malicious implants in a device, and the relevant investigation is still ongoing with no reported fund losses so far. Ledger stressed there is no sign of compromise to its infrastructure, systems or services. Its security team Ledger Donjon will inspect the received devices. Ledger also reminded that many related allegations and loss figures circulating online remain unconfirmed and official investigation findings should be treated as authoritative.
Ledger announced “Atom”, an Android-based hardware device scheduled for official release in mid-2027. The device can run ordinary smartphone applications while delivering hardware-level security protection for crypto assets. It comes with a tamper-proof enclosure specifically designed to defend against and block physical hardware tampering attacks such as screen-reading implants exploited in previous breach incidents.
9. BitMine Adds 12,532 ETH, Holding Hits 6.0289M ETH, 99% Toward 5% Target link
BitMine stated that it added 12,532 ETH over the past week, bringing its total holdings to 6,028,946 ETH, accounting for approximately 4.9% of Ethereum’s 122.1 million supply. Around 99% of its target of holding 5% of ETH supply has been achieved. As of October 11, 5,067,309 ETH held by the company was staked. The announcement also noted in forward-looking statements that management believes the company has “substantially completed ETH purchases”, meaning the pace of future accumulation may slow as it nears the 5% target.
10. Solana Alpenglow Upgrade Slated for Oct 21 Mainnet Activation, Targeting 150ms Finality link
Anza, the core development team of Solana, announced that the Alpenglow consensus upgrade is scheduled to activate on the mainnet at approximately 14:50 UTC (22:50 Beijing time) on October 21. This upgrade will replace the existing TowerBFT with the Votor consensus mechanism, aiming to cut transaction finality time from around 12.8 seconds to 150 milliseconds. After the upgrade, validators will exchange voting information directly instead of recording votes as on-chain transactions, which may lead to a notable drop in transaction count statistics including validator votes. Alpenglow was previously deployed on the testnet and devnet on September 24 and 25 respectively. This mainnet upgrade remains a plan, and the 150-millisecond figure is an expected performance target rather than actual mainnet operational results.
Fundraising
Polychain led a new round of financing for Network School, valuing it at $2 billion. link
Fission closed a $10 million Series A financing round led by Pantera. link
Binance US plans to raise up to $100 million, targeting a valuation of approximately $1 billion. link
Uniform Labs, developer of Multiliquid, secured $8 million in financing led by Polychain. link
Learn more, check out crypto-fundraising.info.
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CoinShares said U.S. September CPI rose 3.7% year-on-year, above the 3.6% forecast, while retail sales increased 0.8% versus 0.3% expected. The stronger data pushed rate expectations more hawkish, with global digital asset investment products seeing $434 million in outflows so far this week. CoinShares said Bitcoin’s near-term setup remains difficult rather than fundamentally bearish.

OKX Global Managing Partner and CMO Haider Rafique plans to leave by the end of 2026, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Rafique joined OKX in March 2020, led the exchange’s rebranding, and drove partnerships including with the McLaren F1 team and the Tribeca Film Festival. He also helped facilitate Intercontinental Exchange’s $200 million strategic investment in OKX in March, which valued the exchange at $25 billion. Both OKX and Rafique declined to comment.

Arthur Hayes: Trading Other Assets to Buy More Bitcoin
On October 13, 2026, Maelstrom co-founder Arthur Hayes said in an interview with The Rollup that whether scarce assets like Bitcoin or on-chain businesses outperform depends on the entry price, market capitalization, and the protocol and smart contract risks investors are willing to take. He suggested that a token with a market cap below 1 billion could outperform Bitcoin if demand from AI agents drives a valuation re-rating.
Discussing his own allocation, Hayes said the fund’s Bitcoin position is so large that its other holdings are insignificant by comparison. Even when the fund holds substantial positions in ETH or other tokens, it takes profits and uses them to buy more Bitcoin. Trading other assets to generate profits and accumulate more Bitcoin is the fund’s core objective.
WuBlockchain notes that Arthur Hayes' market forecasts have had a low historical accuracy rate and that his views frequently change. Readers are advised to focus on his analytical framework rather than specific price targets or timing predictions.

Strive has upsized its 15% Series A Perpetual SATS Preferred Stock IPO by 2 million shares to 7 million shares, priced at $90 per share. Gross proceeds are expected to be about $630 million before underwriting discounts, commissions and offering expenses. Settlement is scheduled for October 20. Proceeds will be used for general corporate purposes, including bitcoin and bitcoin-related products, working capital, income-generating assets, capital expenditures, share repurchases and potential acquisitions.

According to Bloomberg, a Coin Metrics report shows that meme coins reach all-time highs an average of 17.2 days after their first trade, with one-quarter peaking within 1.6 days. The median time from peak to a 95% decline into a “dead” state is 370 days, and only 3% of meme coins return to their all-time highs.