Cointelegraph

European Union rules on AI use are more than capable of dealing with rogue agents, EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen said.
There are global concerns following incidents at OpenAI ‌and Anthropic, and fears have arisen that rogue AI agents may venture beyond human control.
“We see that the safety and security of very capable models is a very hot ​topic internationally and we in Europe are well equipped for that,” Virkkunen said in ⁠an interview with Reuters on Friday.
The EU’s AI Act, which regulates based on the level of risk, is among the world’s strictest AI regulations. It was adopted two years ago.
Virkkunen dismissed critics who claim the bloc’s AI rules are outdated.
Related: Anthropic chief urges slowdown in AI development to safer pace
“We have our AI Act in place and the AI Act covers the whole life cycle ​of these models,” she said, adding that regulators are providing guidance to companies on how to evaluate their models, factoring in recommendations from 60 AI experts.
The European Commission requested information in late August from more than 30 unidentified AI companies, asking for details of their safety and security measures.
Virkkunen said she is now assessing the responses.
Cointelegraph reported Sept.13 that Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said in a blog post the speed of AI development is too fast and that left unchecked it may “outrun our ability to understand and control these systems.”
He said that AI’s blistering advance was being driven by its own increasing ability to build the next generation of AI, or recursive self-improvement.
Magazine: Too big to pause: Could an AI slowdown crash the economy?

Meanwhile, a life insurer licensed to operate completely in Bitcoin, announced $37.5 million in new funding from existing investors.
Bermuda-based Meanwhile, whose backers include OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, has now raised more than $180 million.
Bain Capital Crypto led the new round, alongside Haun Ventures, Framework Ventures, Pantera Capital, Apollo, Northwestern Mutual Future Ventures, and Morgan Creek Digital, it said in a statement.
The round follows increased international demand for Meanwhile’s Bitcoin life insurance policies, particularly in Asia, Europe and the Middle East, amid broader macro instability, according to the statement.
“Wealthy families around the world already hold Bitcoin. What they haven’t had is a regulated way to pass it on,” Zac Townsend, Meanwhile’s co-founder and CEO, said in the statement. “Brokers came to us because their clients kept asking. This round lets us keep up with them.”
Passing Bitcoin to the next generation
In early 2026, Meanwhile launched BTC Life 1-Pay, a single-premium whole life policy built for high-net-worth clients outside the United States. It is the company’s second product line after BTC 10-Pay, which is designed for US taxpayers.
Policies can be owned by individuals, trusts or companies, which makes them a fit for succession and estate planning, the company said.
Net long-term underwriting income has already passed last year’s total and is on track to more than double in 2026, the company added, without revealing precise figures.
Cointelegraph reported in June that WTW, a global insurance broker and risk advisory company, had acquired crypto insurance platform Redefind and launched a digital asset protection service that covers expenses related to forensic investigations, asset tracing and legal recovery efforts following theft or loss.
Redefind is a crypto insurance platform that allows individuals and institutions to purchase coverage for digital assets held across different custody arrangements. The company said its system uses cryptographic proof of ownership to verify insured assets.
Magazine: France is world’s most dangerous place for Bitcoiners: 90 attacks in 7 months

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that the country was “probably gonna seize a billion dollars of crypto this week” as part of its crackdowns on Iran.
Speaking at the Newsmax NPolicy Summit on Thursday, Bessent said the planned cryptocurrency seizure was part of the US sanctions on Iran amid the country’s most recent military conflict, which started in February. He did not clarify whether the digital assets targeted specific exchanges or resulted from intervention by stablecoin issuers.
“We know where it is, and we are isolating them,” said Bessent to Newsmax’s Greta Van Susteren. He added the move was part of a strategy of economically cutting off Iran.
The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC, announced in August that it was targeting crypto exchanges facilitating the transfer of funds to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Bessent said at the time that the US planned to “increase the economic pressure” on Iran, focusing on financial networks funding the country’s regime “in dollars, rials, or crypto.”
The US Treasury Secretary made a similar claim in an April interview, saying that authorities had seized $500 million of crypto tied to Iran. Stablecoin issuer Tether reported in September that it had frozen $550 million worth of USDt (USDT) in 2026 as part of US authorities’ sanctions on Iran, including $344 million alone in April.

Former Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky has been permanently barred from the cryptocurrency, securities and commodities industries under a settlement with New York Attorney General Letitia James that includes up to $35 million in conditional payments.
The New York agreement, announced Friday, settles a 2023 civil lawsuit accusing Mashinsky of misleading hundreds of thousands of investors about the safety of Celsius before its collapse in 2022.
Under the settlement, Mashinsky must pay New York $25 million if he fails to forfeit an additional $10 million in ill-gotten gains to the federal government beyond assets already forfeited, and another $10 million if he does not serve his full prison sentence.
Mashinsky is serving a 12-year federal prison sentence for fraud and was separately ordered to forfeit more than $48 million. The federal sentence stems from his December 2024 guilty plea to securities and commodities fraud.
“Alex Mashinsky promised New Yorkers that his company was a secure place to invest their hard-earned savings, only to leave them penniless when his risky investments collapsed,” James said in Friday’s announcement.
Related: S&P Global brings risk assessments to growing crypto lending vault sector
Celsius promised high yields before collapse
According to the 2023 lawsuit, Mashinsky promoted Celsius as a safer alternative to banks, offering yields as high as 17% while allegedly concealing risky investments and mounting losses.
By early 2022, Celsius had attracted roughly $20 billion in digital assets, but struggled to generate enough revenue to sustain its promised returns, prompting increasingly risky investments, according to the CFTC.
CFTC’s July 2023 fraud charges against Alex Mashinsky and Celsius Network. Source: CFTC
Celsius froze customer withdrawals in June 2022 and filed for bankruptcy the following month, disclosing a shortfall of more than $1 billion between its assets and liabilities.
As of August 2026, more than $3.4 billion had been distributed to Celsius creditors through the bankruptcy proceedings, according to the New York Attorney General’s Office.
Previous federal settlements and legal challenges
The New York agreement follows separate settlements with federal regulators earlier this year. In June, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) permanently barred Mashinsky from trading and registering with the agency. An April settlement with the Federal Trade Commission had already barred him from working in crypto and finance and required a $10 million payment, along with a largely suspended $4.72 billion judgment.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) also reached an agreement in principle with Mashinsky in September to settle its separate civil lawsuit, which a federal judge dismissed without prejudice on Sept. 29 pending finalization of the settlement.
Since May, Mashinsky has been seeking to vacate his federal conviction and sentence, representing himself in the proceedings. Federal prosecutors opposed his motion in August, calling his arguments “without merit.”
A judge denied his request for discovery, and an Oct. 5 order left that decision unchanged. Mashinsky has until Dec. 11 to respond to the government’s opposition to his petition.
Magazine: Crypto lending rises again… but have they solved the risks?

THORChain technical co-founder Chad Barraford accused stablecoin issuer Tether of blacklisting the network’s USDt (USDT) vaults without explanation, then unfreezing them hours later.
In a Friday X post, Barraford said that Tether had blacklisted THORChain vault addresses, freezing about a combined 1.45 million USDT in the network’s funds across four wallets. He reported about two hours later than trading would resume after the company unfroze all the addresses.
“We don’t know why this choice was made and have had no comms with USDT before this action and are actively reaching out to have a conversation,” said Barraford before the addresses were unfrozen. “We hope that this was made in error / misunderstanding.”
Cointelegraph reached out to Tether and THORChain for details on the incident, but did not receive an immediate response.
Earlier this week, cross-border payments platform Conduit Technology filed a lawsuit against Tether, alleging that the stablecoin company froze $2.76 million worth of USDt in a wallet tied to an investigation launched by Brazilian authorities in 2024. Two Thai nationals also sued the stablecoin company in August for allegedly freezing $42.4 million in USDt after an alleged ”informal request” from US Homeland Security Investigations.

British banking giant HSBC and Ant Digital Technologies have tested a system that lets AI agents access digital services and make micropayments using tokenized bank deposits, with transactions settled in real time on a blockchain testnet.
According to Friday’s announcement, the test combined HSBC’s Tokenised Deposit Service with Ant Digital’s Anvita Flow network, which enables AI agents to find and use services, and Jovay Testnet, a layer-2 blockchain testing environment.
HSBC provided settlement capabilities and real-time risk checks, while Ant Digital’s network coordinated service access and payments. The demonstration showed an AI agent selecting a digital service and completing a payment. The companies described the transactions as micropayments, typically defined as less than $2.
The companies said the test was limited to technical verification and did not represent a commercial launch or live customer offering.
Banks experiment with AI-agent payments
HSBC is among several banks testing how AI agents could initiate financial transactions on customers’ behalf.
In March, Spanish banking giant Santander completed an AI-agent-initiated payment using Mastercard’s Agent Pay infrastructure in a controlled test involving the bank’s live payment systems.
Swiss digital asset bank Sygnum followed in May with a test of AI-agent-driven transactions on a blockchain mainnet, with customers required to approve and sign each transaction. Spanish banking group CaixaBank also completed an AI-agent-initiated card transaction using Visa Intelligent Commerce and existing merchant payment systems.
However, not everyone believes established banks can adapt their existing infrastructure to AI-driven finance. In a May interview with Cointelegraph, Augustus Bank CEO Ferdinand Dabitz argued that traditional clearing banks rely on decades-old systems designed for human operations rather than automated, around-the-clock transactions.
Augustus is developing a US bank built around stablecoins and AI-driven operations, betting that purpose-built infrastructure can replace parts of traditional banking systems.
AI agents could drive blockchain adoption
Investment research firm Citrini Research recently explored blockchain’s potential role in AI-driven commerce. In an Oct. 8 report titled Breaking The Wall, the firm argued that autonomous AI agents could increase demand for programmable financial infrastructure.
The firm said traditional financial systems, designed primarily for human users, may need to adapt as AI agents increasingly handle transactions across applications. It argued that blockchain networks could provide the always-on infrastructure needed to move money and financial assets programmatically.
“AI agents move programmatically, 24/7, across applications, and it’s only logical that money and financial assets eventually will, too,” Citrini wrote.
Mafazine: France is world’s most dangerous place for Bitcoiners: 90 attacks in 7 months

Hardware wallet maker Ledger is investigating reports of cryptocurrency losses involving devices purchased from a Southeast Asian reseller, warning affected customers to consider moving their assets to new wallets while the investigation continues.
In a statement posted on X, Ledger said it had asked reseller CryptoBilis to suspend sales and shipments of its devices as a precaution. Customers who purchased devices from the reseller within the past 90 days were advised not to set them up, while those who had already done so were advised to consider transferring their assets to a new Ledger signer with a newly generated recovery phrase.
CryptoBilis is listed as an authorized Ledger reseller in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines.
Source: Ledger Support
Ledger has not disclosed how many customers may be affected or the value of the reported losses. The company also has not identified the cause of the incidents or confirmed whether the devices were compromised.
Separately, onchain researchers reported suspected cryptocurrency thefts involving addresses across several blockchains. Researcher tanuki42 identified eight wallet addresses allegedly linked to more than $72 million in losses, while fellow investigator Specter estimated losses exceeding $86 million across Bitcoin, Ethereum and Tron.
Ledger has not confirmed either estimate, and the extent of any connection to the CryptoBilis investigation remains unclear.
Source: Specter
Crypto security organization Security Alliance (SEAL) amplified tanuki42’s findings on X, urging anyone whose funds were transferred to the identified addresses to contact its incident-response team. The organization did not provide an independent estimate of losses or identify a cause for the suspected thefts.
In a statement to Cointelegraph, Ledger said the incident appeared to be isolated to the reseller and affected market, adding that it had received no reports involving devices purchased directly from the company.
“Ledger’s infrastructure, systems and services were not compromised,” the company said, adding that its investigation remains ongoing.
Magazine: France is world’s most dangerous place for Bitcoiners: 90 attacks in 7 months

French authorities have recorded 90 cases involving kidnapping, abduction, extortion, threats, and violent theft related to cryptocurrencies in just over seven months.
The figures, provided to Cointelegraph by the French Interior Ministry, are from Jan. 1 to mid-August 2026. Authorities also recorded 223 arrests, and 126 people were imprisoned from January to July.
The figures equate to a new case every two and a half days, although there is no official year-on-year comparison to understand if the problem has become suddenly worse: “We do not have the statistics on these items for 2025, as the recording of events began on Jan. 1, 2026,” the ministry says.
What makes the new numbers even more striking is they are much higher than other public trackers of meatspace attacks.
Chainalysis counted 30 publicly known violent crypto incidents in France through mid-2026, but noted that the scale was “almost certainly larger.” Security firm Gart.io has tracked 73 attacks in France in the year to date, which puts France in the number one spot ahead of the USA on 66 real world attacks, and the UK on 27.
The rise in physical attacks — known as “wrench attacks” — on crypto holders in France points to something bigger than a rash of isolated incidents. Leaked personal data may be the culprit.
So, why France?
Wrench attacks are far from a new phenomenon. Bitcoin security advocate Jameson Lopp’s long-running directory of known physical attacks has documented 365 cases across 60 countries between 2014 and 2026, with France topping the leaderboard.
What seems to be new, however, is the speed at which violent crypto crimes are spreading throughout the country. Attacks have gone beyond Paris to places including Strasbourg, Marseille, Grenoble, Toulouse and Nantes, according to Chainalysis.
Violent attacks above the historical baseline. Source: Chainalysis.
Criminals aren’t targeting crypto rich tourists, and of the victims with known residency, 93% were French.
Chainalysis head researcher Eric Jardine tells Cointelegraph the surge is “very likely” due to a “significant data breach.”
“These sort of breaches expose more than financial information; they reveal who holds crypto, where they live, and how to find them.”
That makes physical attacks against crypto holders particularly insidious because they can begin long before a thug shows up with a wrench demanding your seed phrase or a crypto transfer. The assailants first need to know who has something worth stealing, where they live and how to reach them.
Jardine says the French tax authority compromise in 2024, where a tax official in the Paris area “leaked PII, financial and crypto holding information on French taxpayers,” may have been the accelerant. Chainalysis records show attacks surged from late November of the same year.
Chainalysis also points to a further incident in January 2026, with crypto tax reporting firm Waltio disclosing a breach affecting some 50,000 users, creating yet more useful data for attackers to mark their targets.
Francis Pouliot, founder of Canadian Bitcoin exchange Bull Bitcoin, has repeatedly challenged Europe’s DAC8 crypto reporting rules in France, which expand tax reporting and information-sharing requirements for crypto users across the European Union.
“DAC8 has transformed the concept of Know Your Customer into Kill Your Customer,” he said, along with describing France as the “crypto kidnapping capital of the world.”
The world of physical attacks. Source: Gart.io
When the target isn’t the Bitcoiner
According to Chainalysis, one of the most revealing changes may be who is being attacked. Globally, relatives and acquaintances accounted for around 25% to 30% of violent crypto incidents by early 2026, and in France, the proportion was more than 40%.
In May 2026, six men allegedly tried to abduct the wife of The Sandbox co-founder Sébastien Borget from the couple’s home in Villenoy, France, with one attacker posing as a delivery driver to get her to open the gate.
In August, a couple in rural France reportedly endured three separate attempts to break into their home after buying a property previously occupied by crypto millionaires, after the previous owners’ tax information and address were leaked onto the dark web.
A similar tactic was used in 2025, when the father of a crypto entrepreneur was abducted in Paris and held for two days, with the kidnappers reportedly cutting off part of his finger and sending it to his son while demanding $5.6 million in cryptocurrency.
Jardine says the targeting of relatives and associates “suggests criminals are doing reconnaissance before they act,” whether by “monitoring social media, analyzing blockchain data, using leaked information, or receiving tips from insiders.”
That turns the usual idea of a crypto target on its head, since the person with the wallet may not be the person standing in front of the attacker.
French authorities are responding by treating the attacks as organized crime, coordinating investigations through JUNALCO, the country’s specialized organized crime jurisdiction.
The $5 wrench conundrum
Most crypto holders have learned how to protect their seed phrases, set up hardware wallets, test their environments and avoid clicking on phishing links.
While those things are still important, none of them will help if a bad actor already knows who they are, where they live and that they have something worth stealing in the first place.
Cryptography can protect a wallet, but it can’t stop an attacker with a $5 wrench.

Blockchain.com has reportedly applied to the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) for approval of prediction market offerings and crypto derivatives.
CNBC reported Friday that the exchange filed for two licenses with the CFTC for event contracts and crypto derivatives offerings for US-based retail and institutional investors. The licenses, as a designated contract market (DCM) and futures commission merchant (FCM), would allow Blockchain.com to operate as a futures exchange for event contracts and a broker for derivatives contracts, respectively.
Blockchain.com announced in July that it planned to partner with Polymarket as part of a prediction markets integration on the company’s app. However, if approved, the CFTC license would allow the exchange to offer its own marketplace with event contracts.
The question of oversight and enforcement of prediction market platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket is currently being tested in US courts, as many state-level authorities have lawsuits pending against companies for alleged violations of laws betting on sports and elections. Last month, New Jersey officials filed a petition with the US Supreme Court to weigh in on their case against Kalshi, which could resolve disputes between federal and state regulators.
Blockchain.com was also reportedly considering an initial public offering with a valuation of up to $6 billion, expecting to raise $500 million.
CFTC chair pushes crypto regulation, citing FTX collapse
This week, CFTC Chair Michael Selig justified the agency’s attempts to move forward with cryptocurrency regulation through rulemaking rather than legislation passed by Congress, invoking the downfall of the FTX exchange. The crypto company filed for bankruptcy in November 2022 and led to criminal charges for many of its executives, including former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried.
In a Wednesday Fox Business interview, Selig said the proposed rules, which would affect companies registering as licensed crypto businesses, would bring “safeguards to crypto spot markets,” citing FTX’s collapse. On Friday, he posted that the agency’s rules would prevent “theft of customer funds as we saw with FTX.”
Selig remains the CFTC’s sole commissioner and chair, with no nominations for the four empty seats at the agency announced by the White House as of Friday. The chair has repeatedly said he plans to enact President Donald Trump’s crypto agenda and has also claimed the agency has exclusive jurisdiction over prediction markets.
Magazine: France is world’s most dangerous place for Bitcoiners: 90 attacks in 7 months

Affluent investors appear increasingly comfortable with crypto, even if their financial advisers aren’t keeping pace. A new CoinShares survey found that a majority of wealthy investors across seven major economies already own digital assets, with many planning to increase their exposure this year.
The findings come as capital continues to move into crypto in other ways, even against a tougher market backdrop. Bitcoin is trying to build on its best quarter since 2017 while Treasury yields remain above 5%, and OKX has raised additional funding at a $25 billion valuation.
Meanwhile, Strategy is putting more capital into its preferred stock. The company spent more than six times as much buying back STRC shares last week as it did buying Bitcoin.
Bitcoin’s rally runs into a 5% Treasury market
Bitcoin is coming off its best third quarter since 2017, but extending the rally could prove difficult as Treasury yields above 5% give investors an increasingly attractive alternative to risk assets, according to Delphi Digital.
Delphi pointed to Bitcoin’s 43% third-quarter gain and third consecutive weekly advance, but warned that “the grind higher is happening against real resistance.” This resistance includes the Federal Reserve’s September rate hike and Treasury yields at multi-decade highs.
However, Vanessa Grellet of Arche Capital noted that the debasement trade, which favors scarce assets such as Bitcoin and gold as a hedge against the declining purchasing power of fiat currencies, does not depend on low interest rates.
The outlook for rates has shifted since then. September payrolls showed just 29,000 jobs added, well below forecasts of 80,000, sharply lowering the odds of an October rate hike, according to CME FedWatch. New York Fed President John Williams also said there was no urgency to raise rates again.
For now, elevated Treasury yields remain a hurdle for risk assets. Bitcoin briefly climbed above $87,000 last week before pulling back to below $83,000 on Wednesday.
Affluent investors are moving faster on crypto than their advisers
A majority of affluent investors across seven major economies hold digital assets, with crypto accounting for about 10% of their portfolios on average, according to a new CoinShares survey.
The survey covered 2,230 investors with at least $500,000 in investable assets across the US, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden and Switzerland. Crypto ownership ranged from 54% in Sweden to roughly 70% in the US, UK, Germany and Switzerland. In five of the seven countries, at least 85% of existing crypto investors said they planned to increase their exposure in 2026.
Investors appear more comfortable with crypto than some of their financial advisers. About four in 10 respondents in Switzerland, France, the US and Germany who worked with an adviser described them as overly cautious about digital assets.
Ric Edelman, founder of the Digital Assets Council of Financial Professionals, questioned the survey’s finding that crypto accounts for 10% of the average portfolio, saying his research suggests current allocations of 2% to 5% are more common. Even so, Edelman recommends much larger allocations of 10% to 40%, depending on an investor’s risk tolerance.
OKX extends funding round at $25 billion valuation
OKX raised an undisclosed amount at a $25 billion valuation, extending a funding round that brought in $200 million from Intercontinental Exchange in March.
Existing partners and investors participated in the extension, including Standard Chartered’s SC Ventures, Qube Research & Technologies, Ripple and stablecoin issuer Circle. OKX did not disclose how much it raised in the latest round.
The funding comes as OKX moves further into traditional financial markets. On Monday, an OKX-ICE joint venture filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission to launch a tokenized stock trading platform under the agency’s new innovation exemption. The platform’s launch remains subject to the filing and exemption.
Strategy spends six times more on STRC buybacks than Bitcoin
Strategy spent $176.3 million repurchasing 1.77 million STRC shares last week, more than six times the $28.7 million it spent buying 334 Bitcoin.
The purchase brought Strategy’s holdings to exactly 848,000 BTC, according to a Monday 8-K filing with the SEC. Bitcoin accumulation has slowed considerably, with Strategy’s holdings rising just 0.2% in the third quarter after 7,218 BTC in purchases were partly offset by the sale of 5,553 BTC.
STRC, meanwhile, has recovered to near its $100 par value. The shares were trading around $99.53 after falling to roughly $75 in late June.
Strategy also filed a proxy seeking shareholder approval to pay dividends daily on STRC, STRF, STRK and STRD. STRC currently pays dividends twice monthly, while the other three pay quarterly. Shareholders are scheduled to vote on the proposal on Oct. 28.
If approved, daily STRC dividends would begin in November, followed by STRF, STRK and STRD in January. Strategy said the changes would not affect dividend rates or its overall payment obligations, but could affect reinvestment delays, liquidity and price stability.
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Bitcoin (BTC) sought to avoid fresh losses on Friday as crypto markets digested reports of an exploit affecting Ledger hardware wallets.
Key points:
Bitcoin rebounded from local lows of $80,350 to reclaim $83,000 at the Wall Street open.
Crypto markets avoided significant selling pressure following reports of funds being stolen from Ledger hardware wallet users.
BTC/USD continued to trade around $82,500 as traders looked ahead to the weekly close.
BTC price rebounds to $83,000 despite Ledger theft reports
Data from TradingView showed BTC/USD hovering around the key $82,500 support level on Friday.
BTC/USD one-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView
After dropping to $80,350 on Thursday, BTC/USD saw fresh buyer interest as rolling 24-hour crypto liquidations passed $1 billion.
The latest data from CoinGlass showed spot price cutting through ask-side liquidity on exchange order books, with that liquidity thickening around $84,000.
BTC liquidation heatmap. Source: CoinGlass
US stocks opened higher Friday as technology shares rebounded from selling earlier in the week. The recovery included the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index, which CNBC reported had come under pressure following weaker-than-expected earnings projections from OpenAI.
“The sell-off reflected extreme positioning imbalances that have further to unwind in our view, which is why the whole AI-linked tech stock complex is unlikely to simply stage a sharp, V-shaped rebound,” the publication quoted Adam Crisafulli of Vital Knowledge as commenting.
Crypto markets appeared to brush off reports of funds being stolen from Ledger hardware wallet users. In an X post, Ledger acknowledged the claims and linked them to CryptoBillis, a reseller based in Southeast Asia.
“If you have set up your Ledger device, consider moving assets to a new Ledger signer (with new seed),” it advised.
https://x.com/Ledger_Support/status/2108551100613714002
Crypto hardware wallets have faced increased security scrutiny in recent months after manufacturer Coldcard suffered a multi-phase hack in July and August.
US macro data seen as next BTC price volatility catalyst
Bitcoin traders were increasingly focused on the upcoming weekly candle close.
As Cointelegraph reported, $82,500 remained a key level for bulls to reclaim, having served as support since mid-September. The level also formed part of a potential inverse head-and-shoulders reversal pattern similar to one that emerged in 2023.
On Wednesday, Bitfinex Alpha, the research arm of crypto exchange Bitfinex, forecast range-bound trading conditions continuing until Oct. 14, when fresh US inflation data is due for release.
“Our primary outlook anticipates range-bound consolidation between $81,300 and $86,500 heading into the 14 October US CPI data, with repeated retests of $84,000,” it wrote in a blog post.

Dragonfly’s managing partner, Haseeb Qureshi, called Ethereum researcher Justin Drake’s “bunker mode” warning “cryptographic doomerism,” and said migrating tokens to fresh addresses was not a real solution against the threat of artificial intelligence breaking cryptographic signatures.
“Bunker mode” would only protect investors’ coins as long as they weren’t moved from the fresh address, wrote Qureshi in a Thursday X post, adding that these coins would be “worthless if all of the other coins are being hacked and mass-sold.”
Instead, Qureshi urged blockchain networks to adopt proactive measures to protect users against the event of AI breaking cryptographic signatures. He proposed a “Cryptographic Recovery Mode,” a hash-based backup signature plan that users could map to their addresses, enabling validators to force recovery if cryptographic signatures were broken.
The possibility of AI models or quantum computers breaking cryptographic signatures may threaten more than 31% of the Bitcoin supply, as 6.26 million Bitcoin (BTC) currently sit in vulnerable addresses, according to Glassnode.
Of the 6.26 million BTC, about 4.33 million are exposed because of address reuse; moving these coins to a fresh address would end the exposure. Another 1.94 million BTC are exposed through their address format, wrote Glassnode co-founder Rafael Schultze-Kraft in a Thursday X post.
Share of BTC supply with exposed public keys. Source: Rafael
Of the total exposed supply, nearly 1.8 million BTC are held on cryptocurrency exchanges, with a total of 57% of all exchange balances currently exposed.
Ethereum researcher warns AI may break ECDSA signatures in “months, not years”
On Wednesday, Ethereum researcher Justin Drake warned that rapid AI advancements could break the elliptic curve digital signature algorithm (ECDSA) securing cryptocurrency wallets sooner than previously expected.
“It is now reasonable to brace for the possibility that ECDSA breaks before qday, in the worst case, in months, not years,” wrote Drake in a Wednesday X post, citing a Tuesday OpenAI report on AI’s progress in mathematics.
Drake advised users to gradually migrate their funds to fresh wallets where their public key is not exposed, arguing that AI advancements may threaten these holdings before quantum computers.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin agreed that the industry should take the risks from “AI-accelerated math seriously” but said that he doesn’t recommend users rush to move their funds to fresh wallets.
Magazine: Bitcoin’s quantum upgrade path: What BIP-360 changes and what it does not

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) wants evidence that clearinghouses can access tokenized collateral and turn it into cash if markets come under stress.
ESMA published a call for evidence Friday to seek industry feedback on the implications of tokenized collateral.
“We must create the conditions for tokenized markets to operate safely and at scale across borders, with legal certainty, interoperable infrastructures and appropriate supervision,” ESMA Chair Verena Ross said.
Tokenized collateral is entering live European clearing operations as banks and investors seek faster access to securities to meet margin requirements. ESMA’s review will help determine whether existing EU rules can ensure clearinghouses can access and liquidate such collateral when a member defaults.
In July 2025, Eurex Clearing introduced a collateral service based on distributed ledger technology. JPMorgan executed the first live transaction for Dutch pension investor PGGM, moving securities from another custody location.
Tokenized collateral faces liquidity and ownership scrutiny
The consultation covers tokenized representations of assets held in traditional financial infrastructure and assets issued directly on distributed ledgers. It also examines how those models interact with stablecoins, central bank money and tokenized deposits.
ESMA said even assets that are liquid in traditional form may face additional risks when tokenized, including delays caused by redemption procedures or restrictions on transfers.
It also asked whether token transfers confer ownership or enforceable rights over the underlying assets.
The consultation follows the Eurosystem’s September launch of Pontes, a system allowing financial institutions to settle tokenized asset transactions using central bank money. ESMA said Pontes could support tokenized collateral arrangements by connecting blockchain-based infrastructure with existing settlement systems.
Magazine: MiCA cracks down on USDT in Europe... but no one else cares

France’s National Assembly Finance Committee approved proposals this week to tax swaps into fiat-pegged stablecoins and extend the country’s exit tax to crypto investors.
Amendment I-CF1826, submitted by French MP Nicolas Sansu and adopted Wednesday, would make crypto conversions into fiat-pegged stablecoins taxable events from Jan. 1, 2027.
The explanatory text describes the current tax treatment as a “loophole in the legislation,” according to a machine translation.
Taxable gains would be calculated using the acquisition cost of the assets disposed of, with a weighted average for holdings of the same token bought at different prices.
The full Assembly is scheduled to begin examining the 2027 Finance Bill on Tuesday, Oct. 13. If enacted, investors could incur capital gains taxes without cashing out into fiat.
MP Daniel Labaronne’s Amendment I-CCF798, also adopted Wednesday, would allow investors to carry forward realized crypto losses for 10 years. An exit tax amendment adopted Thursday would cover unrealized gains when taxpayers with household crypto holdings worth more than 800,000 euros ($895,000) transfer their residences abroad.
European crypto tax proposals take different approaches
On Wednesday, Greece’s Ministry of National Economy and Finance published a draft bill proposing a 10% tax on individuals’ crypto capital gains, with an exemption for annual gains of up to 500 euros ($560).
Unlike France’s proposed tax on conversions, the Greek proposal would leave crypto-to-crypto exchanges untaxed.
France and other European Union members must apply the bloc’s tax reporting rules under the eighth amendment to the Directive on Administrative Cooperation (DAC8).
DAC8 requires crypto service providers to collect users’ identities and transaction data and report them to national tax authorities, which then exchange the information with their counterparts across EU member states. The crypto reporting requirements began applying on Jan. 1, 2026. The first exchanges of information covering 2026 transactions are due by Sept. 2027.
Magazine: How the EU’s crypto tax rules are expected to work for users and platforms

A Bitcoin (BTC) and altcoins sell-off triggered more than $1 billion in liquidations over 24 hours as short-term holders sent tens of thousands of BTC to exchanges at a loss.
Key points:
Crypto liquidations hit nearly $1.1 billion over 24 hours after Bitcoin dropped to $80,350.
BTC price downside further boosted the odds of a breakdown below key support, analysis by Rekt Capital warned.
Bitcoin short-term holders sent more than 55,000 BTC to exchanges at a loss on Thursday.
Bitcoin drop to $80,350 fuels $1.1 billion liquidations
Data from CoinGlass put total crypto liquidations at $1.09 billion for the 24 hours to 10 am UTC on Friday.
This was the largest daily tally since Aug. 21, when BTC/USD rose from $73,000 to $79,500, setting two-month highs and triggering $1.3 billion in crypto short liquidations. Conversely, long positions accounted for $1.05 billion of Thursday’s total.
BTC/USD vs. crypto liquidations. Source: CoinGlass
The sell-off followed reports of the US government moving more than 12,000 BTC that it had previously confiscated. Such transfers can fuel potential sales.
BTC/USD dropped to $80,350 on Bitstamp, its lowest level since Sept. 18, before recovering to around $82,500 on Friday. That level remained key during Bitcoin’s broader uptrend since early July, and the breakout point for an inverse head-and-shoulders pattern. Bitcoin would need to hold it as support to confirm the bullish reversal.
Trader and analyst Rekt Capital, who has tracked the reversal pattern and its similarities to Bitcoin’s 2023 recovery, now sees the upcoming weekly candle close as key.
“Bitcoin is currently failing its retest of ~$82500. Weekly Close below $82500 and turn it into resistance however and Bitcoin will be back in its Macro Accumulation Range,” he said Thursday on X.
BTC/USD one-week chart. Source: Rekt Capital on X.com
Short-term holders send 55,600 BTC to exchanges at a loss
Onchain data also showed stress among newer Bitcoin investors as the market fell.
Analytics platform CryptoQuant contributor Amr Taha reported that short-term holders — entities holding Bitcoin for up to six months without selling — sent 55,600 BTC to exchanges at a loss on Thursday.
Transactions at a loss refer to coins being sent to exchanges at a lower price than during their previous transaction. They often reflect investors’ impulsive urge to exit their positions at a loss, fearing further downside if they delay their sales.
CryptoQuant notes that Thursday’s loss tally was more than on June 26, when Bitcoin fell below $60,000 for the second consecutive day.
“Notably, Bitcoin was trading above $81,000, compared with $59,300 in June — a price difference exceeding 36%,” the contributor wrote, adding that exchange users may not have opted to sell the entirety of their positions, even after moving them to their accounts.
Bitcoin STH transactions in profit and loss to exchanges. Source: CryptoQuant
“Historically, aggressive loss-driven selling by short-term participants can coincide with short-term capitulation, potentially exhausting weaker holders and creating conditions for a subsequent price recovery,” the report said.

US spot Bitcoin and Ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have recorded nearly $1 billion in combined net outflows so far in October.
According to Farside Investors, Bitcoin ETFs recorded $244.1 million in net outflows on Thursday, following $484.9 million in withdrawals on Wednesday, the largest daily outflow since June 25.
Ether ETFs posted $72.5 million in net outflows on Thursday, extending their losing streak to eight consecutive trading sessions. The funds have shed about $641.3 million in net outflows over the streak, which began Sept. 29.
October net outflows now total $407.4 million for Bitcoin ETFs and $578.9 million for Ether ETFs. Combined, the funds recorded $986.3 million in net outflows this month.
The withdrawals coincide with a weakening Bitcoin rally. The cryptocurrency fell to as low as $80,427 on Thursday, according to CoinGecko. It traded at $82,506 at the time of writing.
A pickup in spot trading volume and ETF buying would show that Bitcoin’s recent breakout had real support, according to Glassnode.

Ethereum client developer Nethermind and Bitcoin and Lightning wallet ZEUS are among several crypto companies to apply for a newly launched Anthropic program that gives open-source projects access to security reports from its most powerful AI models.
The projects submitted enrollment requests on Friday for OSS Scanner, which Anthropic launched on Thursday with the aim of helping open-source developers find and fix vulnerabilities before attackers exploit them.
“These reports will be generated by our strongest models (including Claude Mythos) to give open-source projects the largest defensive advantage,” Anthropic said in its announcement.
The applications come as crypto firms push for access to frontier AI models to defend against increasingly capable attackers. Cybersecurity experts have warned that uneven access could leave defenders at a disadvantage as powerful alternatives become more widely available.
Anthropic said OSS Scanner is an opt-in service that follows its work on Project Glasswing. The company said while it already regularly scans open source software for vulnerabilities and sends reports after human review, the manual review process is slow “so we’re not always able to share vulnerabilities as quickly as we would like.”
OSS Scanner will deliver vulnerability reports to participating projects as soon as their code has been scanned.
Pull requests to the OSS Scanner GitHub repository show Nethermind has applied for audits of its entire repository, while ZEUS, a self-custodial Bitcoin and Lightning Wallet, has asked for its app to be examined for weaknesses affecting payments, private keys and connection to Lightning Services. Another applicant is VirtEngine, a decentralized cloud computing marketplace structured as a Cosmos SDK chain.
Other applicants include developers of AI assistants, agent-security tools and machine-learning infrastructure, alongside projects providing software development tools, cloud storage and energy-system controls.
None of the pull requests had been merged at the time of publication.
Anthropic said projects will be assessed on a case-by-case basis, considering their importance to infrastructure and user security, exposure to remote attacks and how many users or other projects depend on them.
Crypto companies have reported AI-assisted attacks this year. Bitcoin swap provider Boltz suspended operations in August, saying attackers were developing exploits faster than its team could patch them, while crypto-payment service PayPerQ reported repeated attacks it suspected were AI-powered.
Anthropic warned Thursday that AI may favor attackers in the near term, as exploitation becomes cheaper while verifying and fixing vulnerabilities remains slow and dependent on people.
Magazine: Capital starting to rotate back to crypto from AI: Raoul Pal

The Trump administration has announced over $6 billion in science initiatives, including a $215 million quantum computing competition and $2.4 billion in industry commitments for artificial intelligence tools and computing resources.
On Thursday, the Department of Energy identified eight scientific applications to guide its Quantum Genesis Q Competition, which offers up to $215 million in planned funding to companies developing fault-tolerant quantum computers.
First announced in September, the funding includes milestone-based awards and incentive prizes for companies that demonstrate increasingly powerful quantum systems. The research priorities span chemistry, materials science, subatomic physics and applied mathematics.
Advances in fault-tolerant quantum computing could have implications for blockchain-based assets that rely on public-key cryptography. On Sept. 23, three EU financial watchdogs warned that the development of more powerful quantum computers could undermine cryptographic systems used to secure blockchains and financial transactions.
For these crypto assets, sufficiently powerful quantum computers could potentially derive private keys from exposed public keys, allowing attackers to steal funds. However, no quantum computer capable of carrying out such attacks currently exists.
The White House also announced that 11 technology companies pledged $2.4 billion in AI tools and compute credits to support research at 15 federal agencies. Commitments include $1 billion from Nvidia, $500 million from AMD, $200 million from OpenAI and $150 million each from Anthropic and Google.

Thailand’s Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday finalized rules allowing crypto exchange-traded funds (ETFs) to list on Thailand’s main stock exchange, limited initially to Bitcoin and Ether.
The regulator said the rules will take effect on Oct. 16, 2026. Crypto ETFs must be listed for trading exclusively on the Stock Exchange of Thailand. Products linked to foreign crypto ETFs, such as depositary receipts, will not be permitted initially, while Thai brokers will remain barred from facilitating investments in overseas crypto ETFs for retail investors outside institutions and ultra-high-net-worth individuals.
“We have previously seen examples in the United States where the launch of the Spot Bitcoin ETF and Spot Ethereum ETF created new avenues for institutional and retail investors to easily access digital assets,” Attakrit Chimphlapibul, co-founder of Bitkub Group, told Money and Banking on Thursday.
The framework opens a new route for Thai investors to gain exposure to Bitcoin and Ether through the stock market. The SEC also amended its rules to allow mutual funds and private funds to invest in Thai-established crypto ETFs, whereas previously they could invest only in foreign crypto ETFs.
The framework also prohibits brokers from providing margin loans to purchase crypto ETFs and requires fund assets to be held with SEC-regulated digital asset custodians. Investors must receive information about the products and confirm that they understand the risks before trading.
Crypto ETFs must be managed as a passive investment vehicle seeking to track the price of the crypto asset in which it invests. It must maintain net exposure to a single cryptocurrency averaging at least 80% of net asset value over each accounting year.
The SEC consulted on the proposed principles in April and May and on draft regulations in August and September. Most respondents supported the proposals, the regulator said.
Magazine: China’s P2P stablecoin wallets surge 43x, Korea’s $450B crypto economy: Asia Express

US investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald is facing scrutiny from a Senate Democrat over its ties to Tether, with Senator Richard Blumenthal demanding records on the firm’s partnership with the stablecoin issuer and how much Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s family has made from the arrangement.
In a letter on Thursday, Blumenthal, the ranking Democrat on the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, asked Cantor chairman Brandon Lutnick to explain how it monitors Tether’s compliance with banking and sanctions laws, along with all communications involving Howard Lutnick about Tether, including after he left Cantor.
“Disturbingly, Cantor Fitzgerald’s lucrative business arrangements with Tether come at the expense of America’s national security,” Blumenthal wrote.
The inquiry puts Cantor’s lucrative partnership with Tether under scrutiny. Cantor Fitzgerald acquired rights to a 5% stake in Tether in 2024 and reportedly custodies tens of billions of Tether’s US Treasury bill reserves. Blumenthal alleges that Cantor’s stake in Tether increased in estimated value from $600 million to $10 billion since Trump returned to office, and that Howard Lutnick received more than $250 million in that period, including a $192 million distribution from Cantor Fitzgerald.
The letter follows a report by the Democratic investigators on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations last month alleging Tether’s USDt (USDT) has become a key tool for Iran’s shadow banking network.
Blumenthal called on the US Treasury and Justice Department to investigate potential sanction violations. Tether responded with a statement saying it has been working with law enforcement for years and has frozen nearly $550 million in Iran-linked USDT this year.
“Just as Tether has made untold millions in interest and investments from the stablecoins used in these illicit activities, so has Cantor Fitzgerald profited from its relationship with Tether,” Blumenthal wrote in his latest letter to Cantor.
Cointelegraph reached out to Cantor Fitzgerald and Tether but did not receive an immediate response.
Cantor-Tether ties date back to 2021
Cantor’s relationship with Tether began in 2021, when it started acting as a custodian for a portion of the US Treasuries backing the stablecoin issuer’s reserves.
Howard Lutnick oversaw Cantor as chairman and CEO during that period and helped negotiate its investment in Tether in April 2024.
Lutnick stepped down from Cantor after the Senate confirmed him as commerce secretary in February 2025. The firm then named his son Brandon chairman and his other son vice chairman.
Beyond earnings and compliance records, Blumenthal is seeking the terms of Howard Lutnick’s divestiture from Cantor and details of any other loan or financing Tether provided to Lutnick or his family to facilitate the transfer of ownership to his children.
The senator has also asked whether Cantor requires independent audits of Tether, whether it has ever reviewed terminating the partnership, and what steps it has taken to investigate allegations of illicit finance and sanctions evasion.
Blumenthal has asked Cantor to respond by Oct. 23.
Magazine: China’s P2P stablecoin wallets surge 43x, Korea’s $450B crypto economy: Asia Express