Crypto News

The equal-weight S&P 500 outperformed the cap-weighted S&P 500 by 5.85 percentage points in October, its strongest monthly gain relative to the cap-weighted index since April 2009 and its second-best month since 1990. The move reversed September’s 4.61-point advantage for the cap-weighted index, shifting the monthly performance spread 10.46 percentage points toward the equal-weight index. Bespoke Investment Group said this was the largest one-month swing in either direction since at least 1990. The reversal points to a sharp shift in relative performance between the broad range of S&P 500 constituents and the index’s largest companies.

Blockaid has warned that the StepDrainer attack is expanding beyond previously affected projects Kintsu and Flap. The alert now names StonkFun, Pickle Finance, Echelon, Origami, Fluxbeam, Stakepoint, SupSwap, Longbow, SHPRD and ApeX DeFi. Users are advised not to visit the listed websites or previously identified affected dApps, and not to connect their wallets. The warning points to ongoing wallet-security risks across DeFi, but the report provides no estimate of losses or details on the attack’s technical method.

Upbit has disclosed that Dunamu&Partners, an investment subsidiary of its parent company Dunamu, holds 2,081.84950412 BTC as of October 2026. The firm reports no cumulative sales and no trading activity. Dunamu&Partners also says it will not sell digital assets from projects newly listed on Upbit during the first three months after listing. It plans to disclose monthly changes in its holdings at the end of each month. The reported BTC position provides transparency into the investor’s holdings, but does not indicate near-term selling pressure.

Kintsu confirmed that its domain registrar suffered a DNS hijack, causing the official website to direct visitors to a malicious site. The project urged users not to visit the site, connect their wallets or sign transactions. Anyone who connected a wallet or signed a transaction after 00:00 UTC on 31 October should revoke related approvals through the Revoke platform and move their assets. Kintsu said it would notify users once the website is confirmed safe. The Kintsu DNS hijack puts users who interacted with the affected site at risk, but the notice did not report confirmed losses.

Zebra Ándale, version 7.1.0-alpha.0, is a performance release from the Zcash Foundation designed to improve mining and node operations. Zebra Ándale responds faster to transaction and block updates, reuses prior validation work, relays compact blocks and uses more processor cores for verification. In tests, prepared mixed blocks were processed 9.6 times faster than with Zebra 7.0.0 and three to four times faster than with Zakura v1.7.0. A burst of transactions that took Zebra 7.0.0 more than eight minutes to turn into a block template took about 4.1 seconds with the new release. The Foundation says full verification was 2.6 times faster, with peak memory use reduced by a third. The alpha is available for miners, mining pools and node operators to test. The Zcash Foundation says feedback will help shape the stable 7.1.0 release. These infrastructure improvements may make Zcash mining and block propagation more efficient, but the announcement does not directly signal a change in ZEC’s market price.

Binance co-CEO Richard Teng confirmed a security breach affecting the exchange’s hot-wallet infrastructure. The incident involved the movement of about $6.3 billion in assets, according to the report. Teng said customer funds were secure, and Binance would cover any losses with company reserves. The report also said no customer accounts were compromised, but did not provide further details about the breach or its cause. Traders will watch for updates from Binance and any signs of withdrawals, operational disruption or regulatory scrutiny. The Binance hot wallet breach could unsettle confidence in exchange security and add short-term volatility to Bitcoin and wider crypto markets, even if users do not suffer losses.

Flap’s founder said the project’s website domain is currently pointing to an abnormal destination. The stated risk is limited to users who visited the suspicious site in the minutes before the announcement and connected a wallet or signed an authorization. Users who had previously connected to the legitimate Flap website are not affected and do not need to change wallet addresses. Flap said it does not store private keys, seed phrases or wallet data. The team advised users not to visit the website until the issue is resolved and said it would announce when the site is restored. Users who connected a wallet on the suspicious site can contact the founder for help. The incident may prompt caution around FLAP-related links and wallet approvals, but the notice does not indicate a broader market impact.

AI inference platform Baseten has launched a funding round targeting $2 billion, with a valuation of up to $30 billion. Existing investor Sands Capital is expected to lead the round, according to the report. Baseten provides businesses with tools to deploy and run AI models. The company raised $1.5 billion at a $13 billion valuation in June. Nvidia invested $150 million in Baseten in January as it expands its presence in AI inference. Rival Fireworks AI raised $1.5 billion at a $17.5 billion valuation in July.

Japanese listed company Iole plans to sell all 151.21 Bitcoin it holds between 30 October and the end of November, using cryptocurrency exchanges and potentially selling in batches. The sale is expected to result in a loss of about ¥254 million. Iole plans to prioritise investment of the proceeds in AI data centres, AI computing services and its “Neo Cloud” business. The company will continue to hold its HYPE tokens, which it began accumulating in July 2026. The Bitcoin sale adds a small amount of potential selling pressure, but its limited size is unlikely to materially affect the broader Bitcoin market.

A court in Xuzhou, Jiangsu, is hearing a U-coin fraud case involving Wang and others, who allegedly obtained 1.2 million yuan from victim Xiao under the pretext of buying U-coins. The case was initially transferred for prosecution as suspected robbery, but prosecutors concluded the conduct may constitute fraud and brought charges accordingly. The defence argued that the defendants should be charged with contract fraud. Prosecutors countered that cryptocurrency trading is a prohibited illegal financial activity in China and does not fall within the scope of contract-fraud provisions. The U-coin fraud case highlights legal uncertainty around how cryptocurrency-related conduct is classified; the report does not say the court has issued a ruling.

Binance co-CEOs He Yi and Richard Teng said about 80% of the roughly $6.3 billion in stolen assets has been replaced. The exchange has prepared more than $6.34 billion, including over $5 billion in matching tokens such as USDC, USDT, BTC, ETH and BNB. It is buying the remaining assets through public markets and over-the-counter channels, and says users will not bear the financial loss. Binance expects to resume withdrawals by token in stages within about 34 hours, subject to security checks. Deposits and services not affected by the incident remain operational. The exchange plans to take its first proof-of-reserves snapshot within 12 hours and publish the results by November 2. About $3 billion in stolen funds remains frozen on-chain. Binance says its investigation has found no evidence that wallet private keys were exposed, but it has not identified all suspected intrusion points.

Optimism’s OP token rose about 20% in 24 hours to $0.1214, its highest level in seven days, outperforming Bitcoin and Ethereum. The rally followed an Optimism Foundation proposal to rebate part of OP Mainnet’s sequencer and priority-fee revenue in ETH to partners that bring in transaction volume. Rebates would be capped at the fees generated by each partner, would not use OP tokens, and would require governance approval. The Foundation says the mechanism could attract partners while preserving its OP buyback programme, which allocates up to 50% of Superchain net revenue to buybacks after rebates are deducted. Separately, Uniswap’s Unichain mainnet moved to Optimism’s OP Enterprise operations on 29 October. Optimism now handles services including the sequencer, RPC, monitoring and incident response; the chain’s Chain ID, contracts, balances and applications remain unchanged. The existing fee split between Optimism and Uniswap is also unchanged, although the operator now receives the portion previously used to cover Ethereum data costs. The developments offer potential support for Optimism’s partner and ecosystem growth, but the proposal is not yet approved, and OP remains far below its 2024 record high. The price move may therefore reflect short-term optimism rather than a confirmed change in revenue or token demand.

Investor Qinbafrank says AI commercialization is gaining momentum as last year’s heavy investment in data centres, chips and power infrastructure starts generating cloud revenue. US technology firms’ capital expenditure could approach $900 billion in 2026, while Microsoft reported 48% Azure growth and Google Cloud grew 103%. He says rising orders from ordinary businesses, rather than only AI model companies, are evidence that demand is spreading across enterprises. The next test for AI commercialization is whether cloud revenue growth can outpace capital expenditure growth, improving returns on investment. Key risks include elevated oil prices and interest rates, which could keep inflation high and pressure valuations, as well as any slowdown in cloud growth. Qinbafrank also warns that Anthropic’s potential IPO could redirect institutional money from existing technology and AI positions into IPO subscriptions. He estimates a roadshow could begin around 9 November based on regulatory timing, but says that date is not company-confirmed. For crypto traders, the potential liquidity drain could weigh on risk assets; the interview also flags macro liquidity and crypto financing as relevant themes, without naming specific tokens.

Flap said its official website is under DNS hijacking and is redirecting visitors to an unauthorised site. The team urged users not to visit the site, connect wallets or sign transactions while it investigates, and said it will provide an update once the website is confirmed safe. Crypto users reported signs of a possible front-end attack on flap.sh. One observer said a suspicious address may have used a fake wallet-connection page to steal BNB. Another cited a newly issued TLS certificate, DNS results that differed across resolvers, and a suspected spoof site at IP address 31.56.52.52. The page reportedly showed false prompts such as “please try again” after users connected their wallets. The reports have not been independently confirmed.

Blockaid has warned of an active front-end attack linked to the StepDrainer toolkit affecting Kintsu, Flap and StonkBrokers. World Liberty adviser Ogle shared the alert on X. Malicious scripts were reportedly injected into affected sites, and users who click “Connect Wallet” could be redirected to pages designed to steal their assets. Blockaid is investigating and has not yet released further details. Users should avoid the named websites and refrain from connecting wallets until the platforms confirm they are safe. The front-end attack raises an immediate risk for users of the affected services, but the report does not indicate broader market disruption.

On the 18th anniversary of the Bitcoin white paper, Bitcoin has evolved from a fringe experiment into an asset embraced by Wall Street and institutional investors. BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF has grown to about $66 billion, while listed companies have added Bitcoin to their balance sheets and financial firms are expanding into stablecoins and tokenisation. Yet Bitcoin is trading near $80,000 and heading for its weakest month since June. The anniversary highlights a tension at the heart of the Bitcoin story: growing institutional adoption is bringing the asset into traditional finance, even though the Bitcoin white paper proposed a peer-to-peer system without banks or central authorities. Past market shocks, including more than $2 trillion in digital-asset value wiped out during the 2022 downturn, also underline the risks that remain.

The S&P 500 fell 0.57% over the week, extending its losing streak to three weeks after a technology-sector sell-off. The index is about 3% below its record closing high but remains up 10.73% year to date. The S&P 500 Equal Weight Index has gained 13.89% year to date, outperforming the cap-weighted benchmark.

Bitcoin rebounded to about $77,569 and Ethereum returned to around $2,250 on 31 October, after both hit lows during the Binance hack fallout. Solana and XRP also rose. Crypto market liquidations over 24 hours fell to $573 million, with long positions accounting for about 72%; the Fear and Greed Index remained at 30, in the fear zone. Binance founder Changpeng Zhao said the exchange would cover user losses, while blockchain partners including Tether, Circle and Arbitrum-related security teams had frozen about $3 billion in assets. The exchange had yet to announce when deposits and withdrawals would resume. Despite the rebound, technical indicators for Bitcoin and Ethereum remained weak: both traded below their 20-day and 50-day averages, with bearish MACD readings and prices near the lower Bollinger Band. US equities also fell sharply amid concerns about AI spending, adding pressure to risk assets. Traders are watching Binance’s service updates, recovery of stolen funds and broader risk sentiment.

An on-chain tracker reported that a whale who previously bought HYPE from Galaxy Digital has unstaked 304,600 HYPE, worth about $27.19 million. The wallet had been inactive for three months. The move puts a substantial amount of HYPE back into circulation, but the report does not indicate whether the whale intends to sell. Traders may watch for transfers to exchanges or other signs of selling pressure.

Hifi DAO has suffered a governance takeover attack, leaving HIFI token holders unable to control the protocol, its governance contracts or the token supply. Hifi Finance urged users with collateral in the protocol to withdraw immediately and asked the controllers of two specific addresses to remove their WETH. The team said it failed to detect and stop the attack in time and accepted responsibility. It has since limited the attack’s impact, with losses provisionally estimated at about $20,000; the final figure is not yet known. Hifi DAO says it has sufficient funds to compensate affected users and has permanently withdrawn its own liquidity from decentralised exchanges. Hifi DAO will issue no new loans. Outstanding loans backed by real-world assets will instead be managed directly by the core team, with repayment still expected in full by their 26 March 2027 maturity date. A full investigation report is expected.

The Binance hack and wider changes in crypto markets dominate this research roundup. The Binance incident affected an estimated $6.28 billion in hot-wallet assets across eight blockchains. About $2.8 billion had been frozen by the time of the report, while roughly $3.27 billion remained unfrozen. Investigators described a rapid, multi-chain outflow and traced some funds to an Ethereum address that also received funds linked to a separate Bitget case. The address connection is a lead, not confirmation that the same attackers were responsible. The Binance hack highlights persistent exchange risks involving employee devices, signing permissions and third-party systems. A 1kx report estimates blockchain-sector revenue at about $99 billion for 2026, based on annualised first-three-quarter figures. DeFi and financial applications remain the largest source, while institutional and real-economy use cases are gaining share. RWA perpetual trading reached about $2.23 trillion in Q3, and protocols distributing value to token holders through buybacks, burns or fee sharing hit a record 283. Separately, Strategy reported Q3 net income of $19.53 billion, largely reflecting unrealised gains, and held 848,517 BTC as of 25 October. Executive chairman Michael Saylor outlined a potential $30 billion financing capacity, with preferred shares among the proposed routes to fund further Bitcoin purchases. The figure is a theoretical capacity, not a confirmed single financing deal. The roundup also notes that more than 30 major centralised-exchange thefts since 2014 have caused an estimated $11.3–11.4 billion in losses.

Bitfinex transferred 222.7 million USDT, worth nearly $223 million, to the Tether Treasury in late October, according to Whale Alert. The move follows a busy month of transfers between the two iFinex-affiliated companies. On October 28, four transfers totaled $765.3 million within three hours, including a 281.8 million USDT transfer; other transfers earlier in the month included 100.98 million and 140 million USDT. These movements are described as routine internal treasury and liquidity management, not evidence of USDT issuance, redemptions or external market demand. USDT’s dollar peg, liquidity and market sentiment reportedly remained stable during the activity. For traders, the transfers are worth monitoring but do not, on their own, signal a change in circulating supply or a clear directional market catalyst.

The Binance hack dominated a week of crypto news, intensifying concerns over exchange security and market stability. Binance said the incident may have involved an infected DevOps engineer’s computer and reported no evidence that private keys were exposed. The exchange estimated total losses at about $6.3 billion, while CZ said a funding gap of roughly $2 billion could be covered largely by the company’s SPCX holdings. Binance said it would absorb users’ losses and was working to restore withdrawals. Arbitrum’s security council froze about $30.5 million linked to the attack, and Binance reported approximately $3 billion in total frozen funds. Investigators said the attacker used 50 EIP-7702 authorizations to move funds across eight chains. The attacker reportedly sold several tokens, including UNI, ENA, PEPE, LINK, AAVE, ONDO and WLD, for about 70,480 ETH. Aave temporarily froze its DAO markets in response, while security researchers warned that a Binance 14 hot wallet delegation had not been revoked. Beyond the Binance hack, the roundup covered debate over tokenized US stocks, stablecoin payment pilots, and the economics of AI infrastructure. Market indicators were weak: ETH fell below $2,200, while gold dropped below $4,000 an ounce. The security incident and sharp price moves put exchange risk, liquidity and leveraged positions in focus for crypto traders.

After news of the Binance hack became public, an entity reportedly linked to a16z transferred 118,000 HYPE, worth about $10.7 million, in batches to Wintermute, Galaxy Digital and Cumberland. The transfers were made at an average price of $90.72, with the latest reported movement occurring about 10 hours ago. The purpose is unknown, and the transfers do not confirm that HYPE was sold. Traders may watch for potential selling pressure, while also considering whether the movements were part of an over-the-counter transaction.

An ETH whale has accumulated 9,375.6 ETH worth about $21.23 million, according to on-chain analyst Ember. The wallet spent 17.24 million USDC to buy 7,703.2 ETH about nine hours before the report, at an average price of $2,237.60. Including 1,671 ETH bought from a centralised exchange half a month earlier, the whale’s average purchase price was about $2,264. The ETH whale’s buying activity signals notable accumulation, though one wallet’s transactions do not by themselves confirm a broader market trend.

Anthropic’s IPO filing discloses nearly $900 billion in future commitments for infrastructure, including data centres, servers, GPUs, buildings and electricity. These planned lease and purchase obligations are detailed in financial statement notes and exceed the liabilities readily visible on the company’s balance sheet. New Constructs CEO David Trainer described the commitments as “hidden debt,” saying Anthropic needs major investment in AI training, inference and energy. The figure represents future spending obligations, not necessarily conventional borrowing. For crypto traders, the disclosure is an indirect signal about the scale of AI infrastructure investment and its potential demand for power and computing resources; the article reports no direct crypto-market development.

Barclays says credit default swap (CDS) spreads on major AI companies have widened, signalling greater investor concern about the debt financing the AI buildout. The bank’s AI-linked basket now trades 76 basis points wider than the investment-grade CDX.IG benchmark, up from 10 basis points six months ago. As of October 28, 2026, five-year CDS spreads stood at 53 basis points for Microsoft, 80 for Alphabet and 81 for Amazon. Trading has surged: weekly average volume reached about $6 billion for hyperscalers and $3 billion for semiconductor firms, up roughly 740% and 1,900% year on year. CoreWeave’s five-year CDS traded at 15.5 points upfront as volume rose to $302 million from $32 million. Barclays recommends buying five-year protection on Broadcom and selling Oracle’s five-year basis. The report reflects growing demand to hedge AI-related credit risk as technology companies commit heavily to data centres and hardware. It does not directly address crypto markets, but highlights broader investor sensitivity to technology-sector financing risks.

This crypto market roundup covers the forces shaping digital assets, from macroeconomic politics to on-chain trading and regulation. Galaxy says Bitcoin may be in an accumulation phase and considers it a buy-and-hold opportunity, citing technical support, reduced selling pressure and concerns about US fiscal deficits. It also lists conditions that would weaken its outlook, including a sustained weekly close below the 50-week moving average at $76,540. The US midterm election could influence crypto-related stocks and legislation: a Democratic win in both chambers may weigh on crypto and AI shares, while a Republican hold could spark short-term gains, according to the article. Elsewhere, SEC filings have opened a possible route for tokenised stock trading, though the regulator says the listed firms are not confirmed to meet the exemption criteria. The roundup also highlights growing interest in AI agents and automated on-chain trading, alongside risks such as phishing, delayed execution and poor position sizing. Arthur Hayes reportedly sold ETH, ENA and UNI after recently promoting some of the tokens. Other topics include prediction markets’ potential as real-time data sources, Uniswap v4’s effort to capture fees from external liquidity, and scrutiny of alleged spoofing on Hyperliquid. Taken together, the stories point to mixed crypto market signals, with policy, Bitcoin’s trend and trading risks likely to shape sentiment.

Jupiter Lend has restored USDC withdrawals after a period of liquidity tightness ended, according to Odaily. The update indicates that users can once again withdraw USDC from the lending platform. The report did not provide further details on the cause of the liquidity pressure or its duration.