BeInCrypto Global

Bitcoin (BTC) turning into a boring asset is its strongest bull case, according to Checkonchain founder James Check. Its price swings have already shrunk to levels last seen in summer 2023.
Wall Street, however, still treats volatility as the main obstacle. JPMorgan now publishes a 10-year Bitcoin return forecast yet withholds any portfolio allocation, keeping institutional demand on the sidelines.
Bitcoin’s Quietest Stretch in Years Tells a Bigger Story
Check, a former Glassnode analyst, made the case on the Honest Money Show on October 27. He argued that Bitcoin has left its speculative youth behind.
“…it’s going to be normal, guys. That is the most bullish thing that could possibly happen to Bitcoin.”
Glassnode data backs the observation. Bitcoin’s 1-month realized volatility, a gauge of how sharply prices moved over 30 days, fell to 25.2%.
According to the firm, Bitcoin has traded more calmly on only about 5% of days since 2015.
The chart also shows the normal range narrowing. The yearly volatility band has dropped from roughly 55–78% in mid-2022 to about 30–52%.
Bitcoin boring, 1-month realized volatility back to summer 2023 levels / Source: Glassnode A Shallower Bear Market Points the Same Way
The latest drawdown fits the pattern. Bitcoin fell about 54% from its $126,000 peak in October 2025 to $58,379 on June 30.
Bear marketPeak-to-trough drawdown2018-84%2022-77%2025–2026-54%
Check links the higher floor to falling existential risk. He said the market bottomed near $60,000 rather than $40,000 because fewer investors expect Bitcoin to fail.
BloFin Research head Edward Wu has also argued that future Bitcoin crashes could become less severe.
Is Boring Bitcoin the Asset Wall Street Is Waiting For?
Check pointed to JPMorgan as proof of how far Bitcoin has come.
JPMorgan Asset Management’s 2027 Long-Term Capital Market Assumptions (LTCMA), its annual 10-to-15-year outlook, added Bitcoin on October 19. The bank’s first Bitcoin return range projects 10% a year, ahead of US large caps at 7.5% and gold at 5.5%.
Still, JPMorgan excluded Bitcoin from its model portfolios. It cited unstable correlations and 55% historical volatility, roughly triple that of stocks and gold.
The bank said Bitcoin’s role could grow if volatility falls and correlations stabilize. Glassnode’s latest reading is a short-term measure, but it sits below half of that long-run assumption.
Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan, a BeInCrypto Expert Council member, argued that JPMorgan’s volatility input is too high.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight at you, then they add you to their Long-Term Capital Markets Assumptions paper and predict you'll be the best-performing asset of the next decade. pic.twitter.com/TuOuH51l3c
— Matt Hougan (@Matt_Hougan) October 20, 2026
Check believes even a 2% average allocation across model portfolios would draw an enormous pool of capital into Bitcoin.
The calm carries risks, however. Glassnode noted that long-term holders who bought between $85,000 and $118,000 may sell into any recovery toward $85,000.
Check expects the quiet grind to last until Bitcoin clears $100,000. Above that level, he sees headlines pulling speculative money back in and ending the boring phase.

Crypto traders lost $1.49 billion to liquidations over the past day, yet Hyperliquid (HYPE) rose more than 18%. The rally for HYPE followed an Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) deal, Stanley Druckenmiller’s investment and a one-word post from Elon Musk.
HYPE short sellers absorbed most of the token’s $30.86 million in liquidations, according to Coinglass. Binance’s suspected hack weighed on the wider market, and the US venue still lacks approval.
Did Binance Fears Drag Crypto Down While Hyperliquid Climbed?
Binance paused withdrawals late Thursday to investigate a suspected hot wallet hack exceeding $6.2 billion in impacted funds.
Tether and Circle froze stablecoins tied to the transfers, and Binance pledged to cover user losses. Liquidations then topped $600 million in one hour, almost all from long positions, as Bitcoin fell.
Hyperliquid’s catalyst is different. ICE, owner of the New York Stock Exchange, announced a definitive agreement with trade(xyz). The platform lists perpetual futures, contracts that never expire, on Hyperliquid.
Stanley Druckenmiller, who runs Duquesne Family Office, wrote on X that he had invested in trade(xyz).
“I am excited to be an investor in trade(xyz) as they partner with ICE to bring 24/7 perpetual futures on Hyperliquid to the United States.”
I am excited to be an investor in trade(xyz) as they partner with ICE to bring 24/7 perpetual futures on Hyperliquid to the United States. As a market participant, I am looking forward to to using their innovative product to enhance my investment process.
— Stan Druckenmiller (@standuquesne) October 29, 2026
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, quoted the post with one word, “Interesting.”
Will the Hyperliquid Rally Hold Without a Launch Date?
In the last comparable case, the rally faded. Kraken parent Payward announced US Hyperliquid futures plans on Sept. 16, and HYPE set records within days. It then slid for weeks.
HYPE is up after Musk’s Tweet. Source: CoinGecko
If the pattern repeats, gains hinge on regulatory approval and a launch date, and neither exists yet. HYPE’s live price data will show how much survives.
Either way, ICE’s retail push shows a traditional exchange operator treating on-chain perpetuals as a market worth entering.

The Amazon Web Services (AWS) backlog reached $578 billion and is growing at triple-digit rates. AWS sales, however, grew 39.3% to $46 billion.
Amazon missed earnings estimates, and shares fell more than 7% in after-hours trading. Trailing free cash flow swung to an outflow of $42.4 billion, versus an inflow of $14.8 billion a year earlier.
Why is the AWS backlog outrunning revenue?
Backlog rose $82 billion from the second quarter, according to the earnings call. In contrast, quarterly AWS sales added $3.8 billion.
A year earlier, the backlog stood at $200 billion. It has nearly tripled while sales grew 39.3%. AWS added $4.6 billion in sequential sales during the second quarter, so the latest gain was smaller.
Jefferies analyst Brent Thill says cloud providers cannot turn backlog into revenue as quickly as investors want.
He points to data center and supply chain bottlenecks as the cause.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said last quarter that Amazon lacked capacity for 2026 demand and expected the same in 2027.
Meanwhile, Jassy said Amazon installs an AI accelerator about every 14 seconds, with customers absorbing capacity almost as fast.
Can 40% growth justify a bigger spending bill?
Amazon now projects AWS growth above 40% in 2027 and 2028. AWS growth has accelerated for six straight quarters, from 20% in the third quarter of 2025.
Amazon also plans to spend substantially more next year than the roughly $220 billion budgeted for 2026. It raised that 2026 figure from $200 billion last quarter, citing higher memory costs.
Cash capital spending reached $75.9 billion in the third quarter alone.
However, AWS operating income rose to $17.8 billion from $11.4 billion a year earlier.
Microsoft and Alphabet reported a day earlier, and all three big tech earnings reports centered on AI infrastructure bills.
If delivery keeps lagging orders, investors may judge hyperscalers on data centers switched on rather than contracts signed. Faster capacity additions would narrow the gap and ease pressure on the spending plan.

DraftKings prediction markets give the sportsbook a route into California, Texas, and Florida, three states closed to its betting app, CEO Jason Robins said, setting up direct competition with Kalshi and crypto-based Polymarket.
Robins said only about 3% of DraftKings customers in sports betting states also deposit on Kalshi, a figure he treats as a ceiling. The overlap suggests the contest is for new users, where Polymarket and Kalshi face a rival with national reach.
Can DraftKings Prediction Markets Out-Distribute Polymarket?
Prediction markets are venues where users buy and sell contracts tied to event outcomes. DraftKings entered through its Predictions app, which launched in 38 states under oversight from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
Robins said Kalshi’s head start is under a year and argued that DraftKings’ marketing data and pricing models give it an edge.
Kalshi raised $1 billion at a $40 billion valuation on Thursday, up from $22 billion in May.
“I think that anytime there’s disruption, it creates opportunity.”
Jason Robins, CNBC
LeBron James’ DraftKings endorsement ended this summer, and he has since announced a Polymarket partnership deal.
Does Regulatory Risk Cap the Upside?
In August, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Kalshi’s sports contracts fall under Nevada gambling law rather than federal commodities protection. Robins said DraftKings never operated there, so the decision changed nothing for the company.
Utah then filed criminal charges against Kalshi and its two co-founders on Wednesday. The CFTC announced a lawsuit against Utah the same day.
Polymarket temporarily froze trading on its international exchange, the crypto-based arm, after users reported drained wallets tied to a third-party provider. The company said it would reimburse affected customers.
The Ninth Circuit’s ruling conflicts with a Third Circuit decision favoring Kalshi, which makes Supreme Court review plausible. The outcome could decide whether regulated incumbents or crypto-based venues set the terms for a category that sportsbooks have now entered.

South Korea’s KOSPI fell 4.77% from Thursday’s close to 5,654.61 by 10:40 a.m. Seoul time on Friday. The drop followed a 12.64% slide in Alphabet shares after the Google parent’s capital spending more than doubled.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 lost 2.81% over the same stretch, so KOSPI fell about 1.7 times as hard. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix shares took much of the hit, days after both chipmakers reported record profits.
KOSPI Index Performance. Source: Google Finance Alphabet’s AI Bill Reaches Seoul’s Chipmakers
Spending was only part of Alphabet’s problem. Its third-quarter revenue rose 25% year over year to $127.6 billion, just below the $127.93 billion analysts expected.
Capital spending reached $51.4 billion, up 114% from a year earlier. That pushed free cash flow to minus $9.1 billion. Alphabet also expects capital spending to increase significantly in 2027.
Investors responded with the stock’s worst post-earnings drop in 22 years. That reaction carried straight into Seoul’s chip stocks on Friday.
Samsung stock was down 6.25% at press time, while SK Hynix dropped 8.91%. SK Hynix had posted record quarterly sales of 104.6 trillion won earlier this week.
Bigger data center budgets usually mean more memory chip orders for both companies. Investors focused instead on whether Alphabet can fund that spending while its cash flow runs negative.
The selling also tripped a sell-side sidecar. The Korea Exchange halted program selling at 10:04 a.m. The five-minute pause was the first sell-side halt in 11 trading days. It came three days after a buy-side pause.
Tokyo and Taipei also sold off on Friday, though by smaller margins.
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2 Chipmakers Set Seoul Apart From Its Neighbors
In Japan, the Nikkei had risen 1.1% on Thursday after Advantest raised its full-year forecast. Friday’s 2.81% loss erased that gain and more.
Taiwan’s TAIEX dropped 2.80% from its previous close to 45,069.51 by 9:53 a.m. local time. China’s CSI 300 slipped 0.83%.
Korea’s steeper fall comes down to how much of its index two companies represent. Samsung’s common and preferred shares and SK Hynix made up 50% of KOSPI market value. That was their average weight from October 19 to 23, Korea Exchange data shows.
Based on those weights, the two stocks’ declines account for about 3.7 points of the KOSPI’s 4.77% loss.
Where the index heads next depends largely on whether chip earnings hold up. 2 global banks cut their KOSPI targets this week, though both still see room for gains from Friday’s level.
Goldman Sachs lowered its 12-month target to 9,000 from 12,000. The bank said chip valuations already imply a 65% fall in 2027 sector earnings, a view it called excessively pessimistic.
UBS trimmed its target to 7,500 from 8,000 on Thursday. Even that lower target sits about 33% above where the KOSPI traded at 10:40 a.m. on Friday.
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Charles Schwab says artificial intelligence (AI) adoption among 16,000-plus advisory firms it serves is shifting from testing to daily work. Its advisor services chief expects the pace to reach top speed by next year’s IMPACT, Schwab’s annual advisor conference.
Jon Beatty, head of Schwab Advisor Services, told CNBC in Boston that AI will support advisors, not replace them. The cost of adoption falls on the registered investment advisor (RIA) firms, however, and Schwab is offsetting part of it.
Does Schwab’s 1996 Web Trading Launch Preview AI Adoption?
Schwab’s web trading went live on March 31, 1996, and signed up 100,000 customers in a month. Online accounts reached 2 million by 1998, the company’s timeline shows.
The same report put Schwab’s share of online brokerage assets at 41% within four years, twice that of rival E-Trade.
Beatty described the change in pace this way.
“Last year at impact it felt like we were crawling. This year it feels like we’re walking maybe at a fast walk.”
Jon Beatty, head of Schwab Advisor Services, via CNBC
The same timeline says the dot-com crash exposed the firm’s cost structure as unsustainable. CEO Dave Pottruck resigned in 2004, and Charles Schwab returned as chief executive.
Who Pays for Faster AI Adoption This Time?
Schwab is offering a $4,800 credit through Nov. 30 to firms signing up for Anthropic’s Claude AI assistant.
The credit covers a year of seats on the 20-seat enterprise plan, but usage fees are billed separately.
Roughly 11,000 of the nearly 17,000 RIAs that hold client assets at Schwab manage under $100 million. Those firms typically have fewer than 20 advisors, below the plan’s seat minimum.
Valmark Financial Group chief information officer Geoff Moore says usage can cost $75 to over $300 monthly per advisor.
Schwab is the only RIA custodian in Anthropic’s advisor program so far, its release says. If the 1996 pattern holds, that head start could draw more advisory firms, unless usage costs outrun the time saved.

Mad Money host Jim Cramer called Microsoft (MSFT) a buy after Big Tech earnings. He said Alphabet (GOOGL) carries too much baggage after a second straight quarter of negative free cash flow.
Alphabet has $27.6 billion of new shares left to sell under its at-the-market program, which can dilute existing holders. Microsoft, meanwhile, kept free cash flow, the cash left after capital spending, positive at $18.6 billion.
Why Does Cramer Favor Microsoft Over Its Rivals?
Microsoft’s first-quarter free cash flow fell 27% year over year, yet Azure cloud revenue grew 48%. Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood said Microsoft expects to remain free cash flow positive through fiscal 2027.
Cramer credited that restraint for the gap with its rivals.
“They run it like a business, not a science project.”
Jim Cramer, CNBC
However, Cramer said he would wait for analysts to cut estimates before buying more Alphabet.
Can Alphabet and Amazon Justify Their Spending?
Alphabet’s free cash flow was negative $9.1 billion in the third quarter, per its results. The second quarter was negative $5.9 billion.
It raised $12.4 billion through stock sales and $28.7 billion through notes while AI capex and debt fears linger.
Alphabet also agreed to pay SpaceX $920 million a month for compute through June 2029, per TechCrunch. The deal covers about 110,000 Nvidia graphics processing units (GPUs).
Amazon (AMZN) missed Wall Street’s earnings estimate. Still, its operating margin hit a company-record 13.9%, according to its release.
Amazon Web Services (AWS), its cloud unit, grew 39.3% to a $184 billion annualized run rate. Cramer called Amazon a buy but wants to hear the earnings call first. His Charitable Trust owns all three stocks.
Together, the three Big Tech earnings reports suggest AI spending is splitting cloud giants by who can fund it internally. Microsoft appears to be the only one of the four largest spenders still generating positive free cash flow. Higher spending than guided could change that read.

Crypto traders lost $1.49 billion to forced liquidations over the past 24 hours, Coinglass data shows. Bullish bets on Bitcoin (BTC) took the heaviest blow.
Most of those losses landed on one side of the market. However, one major token moved against the sell-off and left short sellers on the losing end.
Bitcoin and Ethereum Longs Carry Most of the Damage
Long bets accounted for $1.29 billion, or 86.8% of the total, according to Coinglass. Short sellers absorbed $197.08 million, and 243,456 traders were forced out.
Bitcoin positions made up the largest share at $475.19 million, with longs at 87.6%. Ethereum (ETH) followed with $330.59 million, of which 84.7% came from longs.
Crypto liquidation heatmap showing Bitcoin longs leading $1.49 billion in 24-hour liquidations. Source: Coinglass
Solana (SOL) and XRP (XRP) added $82.50 million and $37.56 million, respectively. Smaller tokens outside the top group contributed another $178.72 million, with longs at 89.2%.
Over 12 hours, liquidations reached $1.33 billion, close to 90% of the daily total.
The forced closures followed a broad price drop, which pushed leveraged long positions past their margin limits. Bitcoin trades at $77,111, down 4.67% in 24 hours, per BeInCrypto Markets. Ethereum dropped 5.40% to $2,218. Solana lost 6.94% to $94.38, and XRP slid 7.54% to $1.22.
The wave reached traditional assets too. Contracts tracking silver saw $15.23 million in liquidations, while SanDisk contracts logged $16.06 million.
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Machi(@machibigbrother) was liquidated 8 times over the past 6 hours, wiping out all his positions.Machi woke up to find just $1.50 left in his Hyperliquid account.https://t.co/WJDgzXhg2b pic.twitter.com/dSQi8fA4lq
— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) October 30, 2026
Hyperliquid Rallies While Shorts Take the Losses
Not every market punished buyers. Hyperliquid (HYPE) rose 12.74% to $90.37 in 24 hours, according to BeInCrypto Markets.
The token was already rising after reports that ICE plans US futures on Hyperliquid. Its $30.86 million in liquidations came mostly from short sellers betting on a decline.
TRON (TRX) also climbed 9.34% to $0.3601 over the same period, against the broader drop.
The sell-off came amid Binance’s probe into a potential security issue. Prices had started sliding before the first wallet alerts surfaced, BeInCrypto noted, so a direct link between the two remains unproven. Binance has since pledged to cover all losses and paused deposits and withdrawals.
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Elon Musk, billionaire investor Stan Druckenmiller and Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan all reacted on Thursday to the same deal. Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), owner of the New York Stock Exchange, plans to bring Hyperliquid’s round-the-clock markets to Americans.
Investors reacted fast. Hyperliquid’s token, HYPE, rose 19.9% to $95.89 in 24 hours, CoinGecko data shows. Shares of Hyperliquid Strategies (PURR), a Nasdaq company that holds HYPE, jumped 21.8%.
What Is Hyperliquid, and Why Can’t Americans Use It?
Hyperliquid is a trading platform that runs on its own blockchain. Traders can bet on the prices of stocks, oil, gold, currencies and crypto at any hour.
The contracts are perpetual futures, which track an asset’s price and never expire. Trade[XYZ], one firm that lists them, says its markets passed $650 billion in volume in just over a year.
US residents are shut out as it stands, however, ICE agreed to run a regulated US version, pending approval, and is taking a minority stake in Trade[XYZ]. BeInCrypto covered the NYSE owner Hyperliquid deal earlier on Thursday.
What Each Man Said, and What Two of Them Own
Druckenmiller announced his investment in Trade[XYZ] on X.
“I am excited to be an investor in trade(xyz) as they partner with ICE to bring 24/7 perpetual futures on Hyperliquid to the United States,” Druckenmiller wrote.
Musk shared that post with a one-word reply, “Interesting.” Druckenmiller’s Duquesne Family Office also reported 2.94 million PURR shares, worth about $23 million as of June 30, in its 13F filing.
Interesting https://t.co/HQiYAlfKWB
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 29, 2026
Hougan said buyers are still early.
“If you’re looking at $HYPE up 14% and wondering if you missed it, please consider that 99.9% of Americans do not know it exists,” Hougan posted.
He cited no source for that figure, but can he be neutral about Hyperliquid?
Bitwise runs a HYPE fund on the NYSE that charges a 0.34% annual fee on its assets.
Investors are taking note of Hyperliquid.The Bitwise Hyperliquid ETF $BHYP has traded over $40,000,000 in the first 3 hours today. https://t.co/uyChlaHlUo
— Hunter Horsley (@HHorsley) October 29, 2026
The last rally on news of US access faded. After BeInCrypto reported Kraken’s Hyperliquid futures plan on September 17, HYPE hit a record $97.96. By October 26, it traded near $76.
The ICE venue still has no approval or launch date. The live HYPE price now sits about 2% below that September record.

Bitcoin is beating the S&P 500 on more trading days than not in recent weeks. Still, the price keeps failing to hold above $85,000, and has more recently even struggled to stay clear of $80,000.
On-chain data points to 12 factors, from fading ETF demand to heavy supply from long-term holders.
Bitcoin Regains Strength Against the S&P 500
Relative strength compares how one asset performs against another over the same period. In June, Bitcoin outperformed the S&P 500 on only one day in five, its weakest stretch in over five years.
Bitcoin Outperforms the S&P 500. Source: X/@glassnode
However, in October, Bitcoin is winning more sessions than it loses against equities. If investors keep rotating into the stronger asset, that trend could reinforce itself.
That said, the price still struggles to break higher. Bitcoin peaked at $87,100 on September 23; since January, though, it has closed above $85,000 on only five days.
What Are the 12 Factors Keeping Bitcoin Below $85,000?
Glassnode’s findings fall into three broad areas: demand, supply, and market sentiment.
On the demand side, ETF flows have netted out. Most of the $653 million that entered on October 19 has already left. Buy orders on Binance have also moved lower, toward $78,000 to $79,000.
On the supply side, long-term holders own about 4 million BTC bought between $85,000 and $118,000. Many may sell near break-even, which helps explain why the $84,000 to $85,000 band keeps capping rallies. Bitcoin also slipped just below the ETF cost basis near $81,500.
Meanwhile, the broader backdrop remains soft. Economic growth has stalled, consumer confidence sits near post-2009 lows, and Bitcoin’s recovery lags its 2023 rebound. Speculative traders also favor stocks, while altcoin breadth fades.
Still, there are early signs of stability. Volatility has compressed to 2023 levels, losses on each dip keep shrinking, and wallets holding 100 to 1,000 BTC continue buying.
The Fed Decision and the Levels to Watch
The Fed held rates steady on October 28, after a quarter-point hike in September.
Some analysts had flagged the decision as a possible trigger, since the last two volatility lows came days before sharp moves.
On the downside, the $78,000 to $79,000 bids and the True Market Mean near $77,900 offer support. Below that, the short-term holder cost basis sits at $75,800.
On the upside, a daily close above $81,500 would put the average ETF holder back in profit. Daily closes above $85,000 would mark the next step, while a close above $87,500 with rising ETF inflows would confirm stronger demand.
$90,000–95,000 for #Bitcoin this quarter is still on the cards.I was expecting to see a retest at $80,000, this hasn't happened today through FOMC. Spot is aggressively buying #Bitcoin, perps are currently short on the markets. That means that there's structural demand for… pic.twitter.com/vlmgmzZ0dT
— Michaël van de Poppe (@CryptoMichNL) October 28, 2026
For now, Bitcoin’s relative strength against stocks has not translated into a decisive breakout.

Strategy, the former MicroStrategy and the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin (BTC), reported a record $21 billion operating profit for the third quarter on Thursday. Every dollar of it came from a paper gain on its Bitcoin pile.
Yet the company’s own scorecard moved the other way. Bitcoin per share, the number Strategy tells investors to judge it on, fell 3.7% this year even as total holdings grew 26%, leaving each share backed by less Bitcoin than in January.
Why a Record Profit Left Shareholders With Less Bitcoin
US accounting rules now make companies book the rise or fall in their crypto each quarter as profit or loss, sold or not. Bitcoin climbed during the quarter, so Strategy booked a $20.91 billion gain on its coins and $19.53 billion in net income, or $44.75 per share.
In July, BeInCrypto reported the same rules produced an $8.22 billion quarterly loss when prices fell. Back then, Bitcoin per share was still up 4.5% for the year.
Three months later it is down 3.7%. Strategy raised $21.23 billion in 2026, mostly by selling new shares, and sold $431.8 million of Bitcoin to help pay dividends and fund buybacks, the earnings release shows.
Strategy announces Q3 2026 results:– $21 billion operating income, our largest quarter ever– $21 billion capital raised YTD– Returned $STRC to health– 848,517 $BTC held, up 26% YTDhttps://t.co/CRzfxVQuez
— Strategy (@Strategy) October 29, 2026
New shares only add Bitcoin per share when the stock sells for more than the coins behind it.
Where the Money Went Instead of Bitcoin
Strategy spent $2.04 billion this year buying back STRC, a preferred stock it sells for cash in return for a monthly dividend. It also built a $5.07 billion dollar reserve covering 3.4 years of preferred dividends and interest.
Weekly Bitcoin purchases dropped 84% in two weeks earlier this month as those buybacks took priority.
“Strategy demonstrated its commitment to returning STRC to health,” CEO Phong Le said in the release.
Chief Financial Officer Andrew Kang leaves on November 5, with operations chief Reza Virasteh taking over on January 1.
Shares closed down 2.4% at $141.62 before the results and slipped a further 0.8% after hours, while BTC traded near $90,600 on Thursday evening.
MicroStrategy Stock (MSTR) Performance. Source: Yahoo Finance
Strategy says it wants to lead a market for what it calls digital credit, with its preferred stocks paying daily dividends from Nov. 1. The falling per-share figure shows what funding that machine costs when the stock trades below its coins.

Binance has confirmed a major security incident, with more than $2 billion drained across wallets. Circle and Tether have reacted quickly to freeze the majority of the funds.
The concern centers on an Ethereum address that appeared to hold more than $2.3 billion in tokens. Etherscan screenshots reviewed by BeInCrypto show it received 28,005.6 ETH from a Binance-labelled wallet, then sent 195,460 ETH, worth roughly $440 million, to another address.
Those movements have prompted claims of a $2 billion Binance hack. The amount stolen, if any, remains unverified.
“We are aware of reports of a potential security issue and we are actively investigating,” a Binance spokesperson told BeInCrypto. “At this stage, we have not confirmed any impact to user funds.”
The spokesperson said security teams were reviewing the activity and urged users to avoid unofficial links and requests for account information.
User funds are safe!It does look like a hack on Binance. Appreciate the quick freeze from Tether (~$971m) and Circle (~$823m).I don't manage Binance (.com) anymore, but as a shareholder, I expect all user funds will be fully covered. https://t.co/oufpyNChxI
— CZ 🔶 BNB (@cz_binance) October 29, 2026
Nearly $1.8 Billion in Stablecoins Flagged
A monitoring screenshot indicates Circle froze approximately $823 million in USDC at the address. That action has not yet been independently confirmed.
A separate on-chain blacklist registry shows Tether initiated a freeze request targeting approximately $971.1 million in USDT at the same address. Its last recorded status was pending execution, meaning those tokens were not yet frozen.
Together, the amounts approach $1.8 billion, although they cannot currently be counted as confirmed frozen or stolen assets.
Does This Look Like Address Poisoning?
The wallet also received tiny transfers from several addresses resembling another address it had recently used. That resembles address poisoning: scammers insert lookalike wallets into transaction histories, hoping someone copies the wrong address when sending funds.
There is no evidence that this explains the $440 million transfer. Hot wallets are internet-connected wallets exchanges use to process customer deposits and withdrawals, but a transfer from one does not prove customers lost money.
For users, the immediate precaution is to verify entire recipient addresses, use saved withdrawal allowlists, and avoid copying addresses from transaction history. Check Binance updates directly through its official app or website.
USDT also slipped roughly 0.1% below $1 on some exchange quotes, while one decentralized swap screenshot showed a much deeper discount. That isolated quote does not establish a market-wide depeg.
Users Show Brief USDT Depeg at Local Decentralized Exchanges
The crypto selloff was already underway before the wallet alerts, so a direct causal link remains unproven.

Crypto liquidations reached $627.7 million in a single hour late Thursday, $606.6 million of it on bets that prices would rise, Coinglass data shows. Bitcoin (BTC) fell below $79,000 and Ethereum (ETH) under $2,240 as traders reacted to an unexplained $2 billion outflow from Binance hot wallets.
Binance says it is investigating a “potential security issue” and has not confirmed any loss, while founder Changpeng Zhao says it “does look like a hack.” The market priced the worst case before either spoke, and leveraged traders paid for it.
How fast the selling hit
Bitcoin traded near $80,800 on Binance at 20:00 UTC, according to TradingView. By 20:35 UTC it had spiked down to about $78,300, a drop of around 3% in one candle, before bouncing back above $79,100.
ETH fared worse. It slid from roughly $2,335 to a low near $2,233, a fall of more than 4%, before recovering to about $2,263.
The timing lines up with the on-chain move. The first transfer out of the Binance 14 wallet landed at 20:24 UTC, and the sharpest price candles printed within the following 15 minutes.
[IMAGE PLACEHOLDER — BTC/USDT and ETH/USDT 5-minute charts showing the drop, Source: TradingView]
Who lost money
A liquidation happens when a trader borrows to amplify a bet and the price moves far enough against them that the exchange closes the position by force. Coinglass logged $189.1 million in Bitcoin positions and $156.8 million in ETH positions wiped out in the hour, with Solana (SOL) a distant third at $46.8 million.
Short sellers, who profit from falling prices, lost only $21.1 million. The single largest forced closure was an $11.09 million Bitcoin long on Binance at $79,254.
Binance itself carried $344.8 million of the hour’s liquidations, more than half the total. Hyperliquid followed at $97 million and Bybit at $77.3 million.
[IMAGE PLACEHOLDER — Coinglass one-hour liquidation heatmap by exchange showing Binance at $344.8 million, Source: Coinglass]
That is three times the $200 million unwind that pushed Bitcoin below $80,000 last Saturday. Over 24 hours, Coinglass counts 161,647 traders liquidated for $951.2 million, and two thirds of that damage came in the final hour.
Why the market sold first
Bitcoin was already fragile. It had failed to hold $83,000 last week, and analyst Benjamin Cowen’s bearish Q4 roadmap had traders watching $80,000 as the line that mattered.
A breach at Binance, the largest exchange by volume, would also carry a different risk from a DeFi exploit. Stolen exchange funds tend to get sold, although Tether has since frozen more than 1.567 billion USDT tied to the $2 billion outflow, which takes most of the stablecoins out of play.

More than $2 billion in Ethereum (ETH) and tokens left Binance hot wallets on Thursday for an address created hours earlier and funded through Tornado Cash, Etherscan data shows. Binance has not said whether customer deposits are at risk.
The money in those wallets belongs to Binance users, and a confirmed theft would dwarf the $387 million Bitget hack in September. If it was routine housekeeping, the exchange moved its reserves along a path that mirrors how hackers cover their tracks.
What the blockchain shows
At 20:24 UTC on October 29, one transaction moved 167,464 ETH, worth about $388 million by Etherscan’s valuation, out of the wallet labeled Binance 14. It also pushed 63 tokens to the receiving address, including roughly $1.6 billion in Tether (USDT).
A second exchange wallet, Binance 16, sent another 28,005 ETH to the same address 24 seconds later.
The receiving address did not exist before Thursday. Within 15 minutes it forwarded 195,460 ETH, around $450 million, to yet another fresh address while still holding about $1.5 billion in tokens.
The transfer was triggered by a wallet funded only through Tornado Cash, a mixing service that hides where coins come from. That wallet took three deposits of roughly 0.1 ETH on October 28 and 29.
Theft or housekeeping?
A hot wallet is one an exchange keeps online to pay withdrawals, and exchanges do shuffle funds between them. Spreek, a pseudonymous on-chain researcher, flagged the transfer on X.
“It COULD be routine wallet maintenance, but it looks extremely sus”
Tree News, a market alert feed, put the outflow at about $2.53 billion across more than 60 tokens and labeled it a suspected key compromise, meaning someone other than Binance may control the wallet.
Two details weigh against the maintenance reading. A Binance-run transfer has no reason to start from a mixer-seeded wallet. The receiving address also split the funds onward at once, a pattern seen in the Bitget hack timeline after the stolen coins moved.
Whose money is on the line
Binance keeps customer assets in these wallets, so a confirmed key compromise would test whether its emergency reserve fund can absorb a loss this size.
A Binance spokesperson told BeInCrypto by email that the exchange is “aware of reports of a potential security issue” and is investigating, adding that it has “not confirmed any impact to user funds” and will post updates through official channels.
Update (October 30, 00:30 UTC): Binance founder Changpeng Zhao said on X that the transfer “does look like a hack on Binance” and that he expects user funds to be fully covered. Tether chief executive Paolo Ardoino said the firm froze more than 1.567 billion USDT linked to the incident, and Zhao put Circle’s USDC freeze near $823 million. Users have also reported withdrawals stuck at processing.

Coinbase (COIN) earned $718.7 million in the third quarter when Wall Street expected a loss. The same filing revealed that its CEO, a co-founder, and its president plan to sell up to 13.6 million shares over the next 14 months.
Those plans cover about 6% of Coinbase’s 223.7 million Class A shares, worth roughly $2.2 billion at Thursday’s $160.59 close. For COIN shareholders, that is fresh stock supply arriving while the core business shrinks.
Why the Profit Came from Crypto Coinbase Holds, Not from Trading
Revenue fell 35% to $1.22 billion, according to the quarterly filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Transaction revenue dropped 44% to $590 million as consumer spot trading volume fell 59%.
Operating income, the profit from actually running the exchange, was $61.7 million, down from $480.5 million. Nearly all of the net income came from a $715 million gain on crypto Coinbase holds as an investment, a paper gain that moves with token prices.
Analysts had penciled in a loss of $0.15 per share, and BeInCrypto flagged the expected Coinbase loss days earlier. Diluted earnings instead reached $2.51 per share.
COINBASE $COIN Q3’26 EARNINGS HIGHLIGHTS🔹 Revenue: $1.22B (Est. $1.23B) 🔴; -35% YoY🔹 EPS: $2.51 (Est. -$0.06) 🟢🔹 Transaction Rev: $590M (Est. $527M) 🟢; -44% YoY🔹 S&S Revenue: $570M (Est. $561.5M) 🟢; -20% YoY🔹 Adj. EBITDA: $332.9M (Est. $290.2M) 🟢; -58% YoY🔹 Net… pic.twitter.com/2dVK8CAutc
— Wall St Engine (@wallstengine) October 29, 2026
Fees from prediction markets, where users trade contracts on event outcomes, partly offset the spot decline, the filing said.
CEO Brian Armstrong put that business above $200 million in annualized revenue.
“We just released our Q3 earnings, and we set product records across the board despite the tough market. And I’m seeing signs that the market is turning,” he said.
Why the Founders’ Sale Plans are Twice Last Year’s Size
Armstrong adopted a plan on August 12 to sell up to 8.17 million shares between November 16 and October 2027. Co-founder Fred Ehrsam’s plan covers 3.87 million shares, and President Emilie Choi’s covers 1.56 million through 2027.
These are Rule 10b5-1 plans, selling schedules executives lock in while holding no inside information. Coinbase requires insiders to trade only this way, and each plan sells only above undisclosed price thresholds.
The scale is what changed. Armstrong’s plan a year ago covered 3.75 million shares, less than half the new figure, per the Q3 2025 filing.
Coinbase still has $1.96 billion of buyback authorization to absorb some of that supply.
COIN sits 56% below its 52-week high of $361.40 and barely moved after hours.
COIN Stock Performance. Source: Yahoo Finance
Form 4 filings from November 16 will show whether insiders are cashing out while Armstrong pitches a crypto-plus-AI “everything exchange.”

Polymarket halted all new trading on Thursday, 20 minutes after a trader said $800,000 was drained from his account and warned that other users were hit. The company has not said whether it was hacked.
Until the freeze lifts, users with open positions can cancel pending orders but cannot buy or sell. The trader said a friend lost another $600,000, bringing reported losses to $1.4 million.
Is Polymarket Hacked?
At 17:45 UTC, the trader, who posts on X as Car, warned users to lock down their accounts.
“If you are a Polymarket user, lock down your account. I just got drained $800,000. Other accounts are also affected. Friend got drained $600k. Please be careful dont interact with the site,” they said.
In a follow-up post, he said every position in his account had been sold.
All my positions were soldhttps://t.co/TSGAY2yEw0
— Car (@CarOnPolymarket) October 29, 2026
At 18:05 UTC, Polymarket’s status page flagged a major outage. It said the exchange had moved to cancel-only mode while the company investigates an unnamed incident.
Polymarket’s status page shows the exchange in cancel-only mode on Oct. 29. Source: Polymarket
Polymarket also paused its relayer. According to its developer documentation, that system sends token transfers and spending approvals on behalf of users’ Polymarket wallets.
However, the company has not tied the outage to the drain claims. It has named no cause, victim count, or loss total. BeInCrypto could not independently verify the $800,000 or $600,000 figures.
How Polymarket Handled June’s $3 Million Website Attack
In June, attackers tampered with code from an outside vendor that ran on Polymarket’s website, according to reports.
The altered site asked some users’ wallets to approve transfers to the attackers. About $3 million in pUSD, the dollar-pegged token that serves as Polymarket’s new trading collateral, left fewer than 15 accounts.
The smart contracts holding user funds were not breached. Polymarket then pledged to cover every affected user.
“We are refunding affected users in whole, there are no user ‘losses’,” said William LeGate, Polymarket head of experience.
So far, Polymarket has made no such pledge for Thursday’s incident.
The freeze lands two days after Predict.fun, a rival prediction market, lost $400,000 to attackers. Two drain reports in one week put the security of these platforms, not just their markets, under scrutiny.
Polymarket’s next status update should show whether June’s refund playbook applies again.

A week after a robotics token debuted on Binance, one seller dumped 42 million of them for about $5 million in one day. Investigator ZachXBT says Axis insiders received them from a team wallet.
The price fell about 40% in a day, hitting traders who bought after the listing. Axis says its team sold nothing.
Who Sold the AXIS Tokens?
Axis Robotics collects robot training data. Its AXIS token went live on October 21. Binance’s early-stage Alpha section listed it first. Coinbase and South Korea’s Upbit followed.
Binance Alpha will be the first platform to feature Axis Robotics (AXIS) on October 21.Eligible users can claim their airdrop using Binance Alpha Points on the Alpha Events page once trading opens. Further details will be announced soon.Please stay tuned to Binance’s official… pic.twitter.com/l9rgMJ7InT
— Binance Wallet (@BinanceWallet) October 20, 2026
Then the selling started.
In a Telegram alert, ZachXBT said insiders got over 76 million tokens, worth over $12 million, from a team wallet.
Most were swapped for USDC, a dollar-backed digital coin, on decentralized exchanges (DEXs). Some went to Bitget.
“Please explain to the community why an entity received ~42M AXIS from the Axis team multisig to six addresses and sold it for 5.04M USDC via DEX over the past 24 hours which has caused the AXIS price to crash 40%?,” the blockchain sleuth posed.
That sale equaled a quarter of all tokens tradable at launch. The other 835 million are locked in a contract run jointly with Binance, Axis said.
Axis Blames a Partner It Hasn’t Named
Axis said no team or investor tokens were sold. It sent community-fund tokens to one over-the-counter (OTC) trading firm under a written lock-up deal.
“The pattern of the sales, which went through … hundreds of fresh addresses within hours of delivery, strongly suggests that the OTC counterparty sold these tokens on the open market,” the team stated.
Axis has cut ties and called in lawyers.
Axis’ tokenomics show the fund released 80 million tokens at launch. ZachXBT traced 76 million.
Another 431 million fund tokens unlock monthly from next month, now on automatic schedules, Axis says. A similar rush to exchanges preceded a 40% slide in DoubleZero’s 2Z token in 2025.
The $5 million sits in eight wallets. ZachXBT calls their owner an insider. Axis blames a partner it believes broke the deal.

Alphabet shares fell nearly 12% early Thursday, on track for their worst post-earnings drop on record. Google’s AI search is drawing more users but less ad money.
The slide erased roughly $465 billion in market value, more than three times Alphabet’s $127.6 billion quarterly revenue.
Alphabet Stock (GOOG) Performance. Source: Yahoo Finance Google Search is Not Bringing Profits
Search revenue rose 12% to $63.35 billion in the third quarter, down from 17% in the second. Analysts expected about 15%.
Chief Executive Sundar Pichai said query growth hit its fastest pace in five years. Yet Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler named weaker earnings from AI Mode as one cause of the slowdown, Search Engine Journal reported.
AI Mode is Google’s chatbot-style search, which answers in conversation. Each AI Mode search currently brings in less ad money than a classic one, and Google is still testing ads inside it.
Alphabet $GOOGL -13%, on track for its WORST post-earnings decline on record:As fears over the future of Google Search intensify despite Cloud revenue more than doubling.Search revenue growth slowed to 12% in Q3 from 17% in Q2, missing expectations of roughly 15%.The… https://t.co/i72K1zYzoN pic.twitter.com/EQnGgwC12f
— Wall St Engine (@wallstengine) October 29, 2026
Spending adds pressure. Free cash flow, the cash left after investment, hit minus $9.1 billion, as BeInCrypto reported in its first-night earnings coverage.
“In a market worried about AI cannibalising the franchise, investors need to see search accelerating, not decelerating,” Reuters reported, citing Dave Wagner, portfolio manager at Aptus Capital Advisors.
Does Wall Street Still Back Alphabet After the Drop?
Shares also fell 7.1% after July’s results. On Tuesday, BeInCrypto’s pre-earnings chart analysis flagged $306 and then $275 as downside levels. Thursday’s drop broke the first.
Alphabet Stock Post-Earnings Drops Compared. Source: BeInCrypto
“…on track for its WORST post-earnings decline on record: As fears over the future of Google Search intensify despite Cloud revenue more than doubling. Search revenue growth slowed to 12% in Q3 from 17% in Q2, missing expectations of roughly 15%,” noted Bull Theory, a popular account on X.
Meanwhile, Google Cloud revenue rose 103% to $30.7 billion, with $561 billion in signed contracts not yet billed. Rosenblatt analyst Scott Devitt projects Cloud will out-earn Search and YouTube ads combined by 2028.
Despite Google’s stock crash deepening, analysts remain optimistic. Of 29 analysts tracked by TipRanks, 25 rate the stock a buy, with an average target of $398.50.
Analysts Forecast on GOOGL Stock. Source: TipRanks
Notably, most of these targets predate the report. The next test is whether AI Mode ads, now expanding to 10 more markets, close the gap.

KuCoin has stopped serving customers in Russia and Belarus, becoming the third major crypto exchange to announce restrictions in the region within two weeks.
KuCoin said the decision took effect immediately and covered every product. Affected customers will receive individual deadlines to close positions and withdraw funds.
The exchange cited “applicable legal and regulatory requirements,” without naming any new rule or regulator. Its earlier announcements, however, provide clues.
The Sanctions Trail Started Months Earlier
On July 23, the European Union adopted its 21st Russia sanctions package, banning transactions with 14 foreign crypto platforms and creating powers to restrict other overseas providers used to evade sanctions.
Weeks later, KuCoin began blocking direct and indirect transactions involving services including A7-linked entities, Rapira and HTX.Its September 29 notice expanded the restricted-counterparty list and warned that even intermediary-wallet connections could trigger reviews or account limits.
⚡️ BREAKING: The EU Has Adopted Its 21st Sanctions Package — Another Blow to RussiaThe new sanctions target:🔵 170 entities and 48 individuals.🔵 More than 100 banks and cryptocurrency operators.🔵 Over 40 vessels from Russia's "shadow fleet."🔵 Several oil refineries in… pic.twitter.com/pCCw0NCvAV
— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) July 23, 2026
That sequence makes sanctions exposure a strong possible explanation for the withdrawal. It does not establish that Brussels ordered KuCoin to leave.
KuCoin also has reasons to take European scrutiny seriously. Austria’s financial regulator restricted new business at its EU subsidiary in February over gaps in anti-money-laundering and sanctions-compliance appointments.
It lifted that ban in May, while separate operational restrictions remained.
The retreat is spreading. Bitget restricted users in Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan after an October 16 terms update. MEXC announced its Russia-Belarus exit on October 20.
How Many KuCoin Users Could Be Affected?
KuCoin has published no country-level account numbers. But Semrush estimates Russia generated 1.03 million visits to KuCoin’s website in September, accounting for 3.93% of global visits and making Russia its third-largest traffic source.
KuCoin says it has more than 45 million global users. Applying Russia’s web-traffic share to that figure suggests roughly 1.77 million Russian registrations.
That is an illustrative estimate, not a verified affected-user count: visits are not unique people, mobile-app use is missing, and many registered accounts may be inactive.
Belarus adds an unknown number. The number receiving closure notices could be much smaller.

\The US Treasury sanctioned 10 individuals and one entity on October 28 over North Korea’s IT worker schemes. Two of those named are Russians who allegedly converted millions in crypto for the regime’s networks.
Chainalysis’s on-chain data connects one of the Russians to mainstream crypto exchanges, which the firm did not name.
Following the Money Out of Pyongyang’s Remote Payroll
Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) identified Vitold Viktorovich Obertas as a Russian intermediary for North Korean financial transactions.
OFAC says he converted nearly $2 million in crypto for North Korean officials since January 2025. He also allegedly handled at least $1.25 million in other currency transactions.
Fellow Russian Ilya Boykov allegedly converted about $3.5 million in crypto for North Korean company Alis since 2024.
Chainalysis found that Obertas’ wallet received funds from Amnokgang, received funds from Amnokgang, an IT worker firm OFAC sanctioned on March 12. The same wallet also made deposits at both mainstream and sanctioned exchanges.
Chainalysis Reactor Graph Showing Transfers from Amnokgang to Obertas’ Wallet. Source: Chainalysis
Chainalysis also traced funds from Boykov to Garantex, a Russian exchange under US sanctions since April 2022. US authorities seized its web domains in March 2025.
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Where Strict Liability Meets the Exchange Trail
Treasury said sanctions violations can bring civil or criminal penalties for US and foreign persons alike. OFAC may impose those civil penalties on a strict liability basis. Treasury added that non-US persons cannot cause US persons to violate sanctions, wittingly or unwittingly.
Prosecutors raised a similar concern in the Garantex case. The Justice Department alleged its operators redesigned the exchange to induce US businesses to transact with it unwittingly.
Treasury also warned that financial institutions and other persons may risk sanctions exposure for certain transactions involving designated persons. OFAC’s new listings flag secondary sanctions risk under its North Korea regulations.
For the unnamed mainstream exchanges that took Obertas’ deposits, any further dealings with him now carry that risk. Chainalysis did not say when those deposits took place.
Chainalysis said transfers involving the designated addresses now trigger sanctions alerts for its screening clients, depending on alert settings. US persons holding the designees’ property must block it and report it to OFAC.
The open question is which mainstream venues took Obertas’ deposits and whether their screening flagged them.
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