Crypto News

Meta has acquired Sundial, an AI-powered data analytics startup founded in 2021 by former Meta executives Chandra Narayanan and Julie Zhuo. The company confirmed the deal to Axios on October 23, 2026. Sundial develops self-service analytics tools that combine AI, contextual data and expert playbooks to help businesses make decisions faster. It raised $23 million, including a $16 million Series A in 2025, with backing from Sequoia Capital and GPV. Its clients included OpenAI. Sundial will join Meta’s new data analytics organization, led by Alex Schultz, rather than operate as a standalone product. The acquisition supports Meta’s broader effort to strengthen its analytics capabilities as demand for AI-driven insights grows. The terms were not disclosed. The deal’s implications for Sundial’s existing clients, including OpenAI, remain unclear.

Bitcoin recovered to around $81,700 on Friday, gaining about 0.5% since midnight UTC after a tech-led market selloff. The rebound followed roughly $635 million in net outflows from US spot Bitcoin ETFs on Thursday, ending a three-day streak that had brought in more than $1 billion. Bitcoin ETF flows are now a key short-term gauge of institutional demand: renewed withdrawals could weigh on sentiment, while fresh inflows may support the recovery. Risk appetite remains fragile. The Nasdaq fell 2.6% on Thursday, its steepest daily decline since June, while Brent crude traded near $113 a barrel. Higher oil prices could keep inflation elevated and limit the scope for interest-rate cuts. Markets broadly expect the Federal Reserve to hold rates at 3.75%–4.0% at its October 27–28 meeting, but December policy remains uncertain. Traders will watch the Fed’s statement and press conference for clues on rates, alongside ETF flows and broader market conditions.

PEPE rose 9% in four hours on October 23, 2026, reaching about $0.00000502 and outperforming Bitcoin, which gained around 0.5%. The rally pushed PEPE above local resistance near $0.00000476. CoinGlass data showed roughly $2.42 million in 1000PEPE short liquidations over 24 hours, compared with about $1.31 million in long liquidations. Forced buying to close short positions may have amplified the move, although the data does not establish how much it contributed. Reports of declining PEPE balances on centralised exchanges may also have supported the price, but their effect is unclear. Traders will watch whether PEPE holds above the reclaimed resistance. The sharp gain and liquidation-driven buying point to near-term momentum, but the rally could fade if demand weakens.

SpaceX reported strong third-quarter results, with revenue up 161% year over year and adjusted EBITDA rising 306%. Its expanding compute business is now the main growth driver, and management is targeting as much as 13 GW of capacity by the end of 2027. Demand from external customers could help fund SpaceX’s AI development while generating revenue from its computing capacity. However, the stock’s valuation—about 67 times estimated 2027 earnings—leaves limited room for error. Possible normalization in compute prices and IPO lockup expirations are further risks. The article rates SpaceX a Hold, despite its rapid growth.

JPM Coin (JPMD) has recorded zero supply and zero transfers on Ethereum, according to blockchain analytics firm Sentora, following JPMorgan’s launch of the deposit token for approved institutional clients. Sentora found one allowlisted address in the Ethereum contract it reviewed. Its Base deployment held about $1 million across two addresses, with supply unchanged since November 2025. The firm reported no live on-chain integration linking JPM Coin to JPMorgan funds or DeFi protocols. Separately, Sentora reported $400 million in redemptions from J.P. Morgan Asset Management’s JLTXX fund on Ethereum on Oct. 21–22, while its Solana deployment reached $450 million. The figures do not prove that the same investors moved funds between networks or that the amounts represent a direct migration. JPMorgan says qualified U.S. investors can access JLTXX and its MONY fund on Solana. The findings point to limited visible activity for JPM Coin on Ethereum so far, while tokenized fund activity across networks is developing.

The Professional Firefighters of Maine and the International Association of Fire Fighters have endorsed Republican Senator Susan Collins in the 2026 Maine Senate race. The endorsement is a shift from the union’s earlier support for Democrat Troy Jackson during his unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign. Collins, a five-term incumbent, is facing former state Senate president Jackson in a closely watched contest. The Maine Senate race remains competitive, with recent polls showing differing results. Prediction-market data cited in the article listed a 66% probability for Democrats to win and 34% for Republicans; the endorsement’s effect on those odds was not quantified.

Anthropic employees are far more optimistic than the US public about artificial intelligence achieving Nobel Prize-level breakthroughs by 2030. A company report found that 91% of surveyed employees expect such advances, compared with 39% of US adults. The contrast comes as Anthropic reportedly prepares for a potential IPO next month, with a possible valuation of about $1.5 trillion. The listing would test investor appetite for the AI sector and the company’s valuation. Strategic announcements and partnerships with Amazon or Google could influence sentiment ahead of the offering.

Microsoft is positioning its enterprise AI business around security and agentic AI, aiming to build customer confidence as adoption grows. Its silicon-to-software strategy includes custom Maia 200 and Maia 300 chips, which could support Intelligent Cloud margin recovery, with more material benefits expected by fiscal 2028 (eFY28). The analyst reiterates a Strong Buy rating and sets a $765 price target, based on a 20.20x eFY28 EV/EBITDA multiple and expectations for continued cloud growth. Key risks include AI agents cannibalising existing products, higher device costs and slower enterprise adoption if security concerns persist.

CFTC data shows large speculators held a net long position of 2,418 CME Bitcoin futures contracts for the week of October 20, down slightly from 2,534 contracts the previous week. The report was released on October 23 and reflects positions as of the preceding Tuesday. The net long indicates a modestly positive positioning bias, but it does not necessarily signal outright bullish conviction. CFTC positioning data records holdings, not traders’ motives. Hedging strategies, including basis trades, can also contribute to long or short positions. In the prior week’s more detailed breakdown, leveraged funds were net short about 5,844 standard contracts, while asset managers and institutions were net long 3,642. For Bitcoin traders, the small decline in net longs suggests speculative positioning eased slightly rather than shifting sharply. The next COT report was expected on October 30, with changes in positioning and open interest likely to offer further context.

Solayer Pay now accepts eligible USDC and USDT deposits from Solana, Ethereum, Arbitrum, BNB Chain and Base without requiring users to bridge funds first. Deposits are credited to a common app balance that can be spent with virtual or physical cards, where available, and used for compatible mobile wallets and peer-to-peer payments. Solayer says more than 45,000 cardholders use its product, first introduced as the Emerald Card in April 2025. The figure is company-reported and does not indicate payment volumes or active usage. Solayer Pay’s expanded stablecoin deposit options could make crypto card payments easier by reducing the need to switch networks, but users should consider custody, withdrawal terms, eligibility and identity-verification requirements. The launch’s impact will depend on whether simpler deposits lead to sustained card spending.

XSPI is rated Hold because its options-based strategy offers monthly cash flow but introduces higher crash risk and uncertain long-term returns. A five-year model estimates a 7.1% average annualised return, but also a 33.8% chance of losses. The analysis says XSPI may underperform SPY and similar income strategies in many scenarios. Its high payouts largely come from return of capital, while concentrated equity exposure limits diversification. Investors seeking income should weigh the cash distributions against the strategy’s downside risks and variable outcomes.

The planned Ethereum client 3.8.1 release updates the app version and prepares release notes for Hoodi, Ethereum’s testnet. The notes will remove the October 26 Glamsterdam activation, state the upgrade deadline and link to the Ethereum Foundation announcement. The release is also expected to include user-facing fixes from issues #25257 and #25269, plus #25287 if it lands before tagging. It will document Caplin archive upgrade and downgrade caveats. Minor and infrastructure-only changes are excluded. The previous 3.8.0 release date is set to October 20, 2026, matching its GitHub publication date. These are release-preparation details; the material provided does not specify the fixes or the upgrade deadline.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy says high AI inference costs are limiting adoption beyond two main customer groups: AI labs and businesses using AI to cut costs. He described demand as a “barbell”, with broader enterprise use still largely untapped. Jassy’s comments highlight AI inference costs as a key challenge for the sector. Amazon is promoting its Trainium AI accelerators, which it says offer competitive price-performance, as it seeks to make AI more economical for businesses. Lower AI inference costs could help unlock wider enterprise adoption and affect the competitive outlook for Amazon and AI companies such as Anthropic.

AWS has launched TorchNeuron, a native PyTorch backend for its Trainium2 and Trainium3 AI chips, aiming to make them easier to use for research and model training. The software entered public beta on 19 October 2026 and was open-sourced the next day at PyTorch Conference North America, alongside Neuron SDK 2.33.0. TorchNeuron supports standard PyTorch APIs and eager execution. Developers can direct a model to Trainium with a simple device setting, avoiding some of the extra code and compiler-focused work required by the previous PyTorch/XLA setup. Support is limited to Trainium2 and Trainium3; Trainium1 and AWS Inferentia chips are excluded. AWS says more than 30 early customers are using TorchNeuron across robotics, voice AI and large language model development. Voice AI companies Cartesia and Deepgram reported performance improvements against their earlier configurations. The update could make AWS Trainium a more accessible alternative for AI research and training, extending its use beyond inference.

PEPE rose 11% on October 23, reaching a monthly high near $0.000005076. Its market capitalisation climbed above $2.13 billion, making it the 50th-largest cryptocurrency and fourth-largest meme coin. Analysts cited improving chart structure and a possible breakout above the $0.0000050–$0.0000053 resistance zone as reasons PEPE could rise further. However, its Relative Strength Index recently reached 94, well above the 70 level commonly associated with overbought conditions. Recent exchange inflows have also exceeded outflows, potentially increasing near-term selling pressure. The indicators point to a volatile outlook: further gains are possible, but PEPE may be vulnerable to a short-term correction.

NFT supporters are debating the sector’s future as major platforms scale back or close. Nifty Gateway shut down on April 23, 2026, while Binance ended its centralized NFT service in July. Magic Eden exited Bitcoin and EVM-based NFT trading but continues to support Solana assets. Community posts on X reflected doubt, nostalgia and continued loyalty. Users including FFV and AKYLLES praised NFTs’ role in online communities, while others asked which projects might be undervalued. The posts did not point to specific collections or evidence of a market recovery. Trading data showed a mixed picture. In the week to September 19, total NFT sales fell 15.28% to $37.54 million, while transactions declined 9.08% to 808,432. Courtyard led collections with $6.3 million in sales and 123,504 transactions; its transaction count rose 21.52% even as sales value slipped 0.93%. Ethereum recorded $15.32 million in sales, while Bitcoin sales fell 53.99% to $4.33 million. The platform withdrawals reduce options for collectors, but activity across NFT marketplaces and collections remains uneven rather than uniformly absent. The data and social-media debate point to ongoing interest, alongside weaker sales and a narrower choice of trading venues.

Mark Zuckerberg plans to sell nonvoting Meta shares to pay a potential California wealth tax while retaining his voting control. The reported arrangement also commits him to remain in California—or wherever Meta is headquartered—for eight years. Representative Ro Khanna said the deal weakens claims that the California wealth tax would drive billionaires out of the state. The fate of Proposition 40 remains uncertain ahead of the November 3 election. A prediction market put the measure’s chance of passing at about 22.5%, up from 22% a day earlier, though the article does not establish that the reported deal caused the change.

Crypto analyst Dennis Liu, known as VirtualBacon, says he is more bullish on altcoins than at any point in four years. He points to the Federal Reserve’s expanding balance sheet since November 2025, arguing that renewed liquidity could support altcoins relative to Bitcoin (BTC). He also says the altcoin-to-Bitcoin ratio is near historical lows and that a recent pullback may offer a better entry point. Liu does not expect a repeat of the 2020–2021 boom. He assigns a 50% chance to altcoins moving sideways against BTC, a 40% chance of outperformance and a 10% chance of further underperformance. Analyst Matthew Hyland says the median altcoin is ahead of BTC year to date in 2026, the first such occurrence since 2021. Recent price action remains weak: BTC was rejected below $85,000 and the crypto market lost more than $60 billion from its previous daily peak. BTC was around $82,000, with dominance above 58%; Ethereum (ETH) was near $2,400, down 2% over seven days, while Monero (XMR) gained 8% to about $613. The outlook for altcoins is therefore based on liquidity and relative valuations, while short-term market momentum remains uncertain.

MetaMask 8.16.1 is an over-the-air hotfix release focused on wallet reliability. It updates transaction payment handling to prefer checksummed asset IDs and adjusts the implementation of 7702 delegations, including a revert and subsequent fix involving exactExecutionBatch. The broader release work also includes updates to swaps, Quick Buy, perpetuals trading, social trading and token pages. Notable changes include live price-based profit and loss metrics, copy trading from the social feed, and a unified meme-token details page. The release history also references Bitcoin and Stellar wallet Snap updates, plus changes affecting USDC, PEPE and other app features. These are product and infrastructure updates rather than changes to crypto token fundamentals. Traders may benefit from smoother transaction flows and added trading tools, but the changelog does not report market-moving announcements or performance data.

The Nasdaq 100 fell 5.5% last week, its steepest weekly decline since the April 2025 tariff shock. Semiconductor stocks also recorded their longest losing streak since 2008, as investors worried about financing costs and the sustainability of tech-sector investment. The article highlights SpaceX’s expanding AI business and computing plans, alongside Meta’s capital expenditure, which is up 80%. Meta’s cash flow has fallen below zero, while early returns are emerging in its core business. The author argues that costlier credit could make the current market cycle last longer. The provided article excerpt ends before giving the 10-year Treasury yield figure or further details.

Bitcoin Core has added an “easily discoverable” category to its vulnerability disclosure policy, developer Antoine Poinsot said on 22 October 2026. The category includes flaws that can be found with little effort, including through simple prompts to large language models (LLMs). For bugs in this category, Bitcoin Core will immediately backport fixes to all actively supported major versions and publish a security advisory at the same time, rather than use the usual embargo period. The revised Bitcoin Core policy responds to a rise in reports involving AI-assisted bug hunting and reflects the view that delaying disclosure offers little protection when a flaw is easy to rediscover. Existing timelines remain in place for other low-, medium- and high-severity vulnerabilities. Critical bugs will continue to be handled case by case. No vulnerability has yet been assigned to the new category, and the policy applies based on how easily a flaw can be found—not whether AI was used. Node operators should watch for coordinated patches and public advisories; how the team defines “easily discoverable” remains an open question.

Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance defended a controversial campaign ad targeting Amy Acton, the Democratic candidate for Ohio governor. The ad features Acton’s estranged mother and has drawn criticism from Ohio Governor Mike DeWine and other Republican leaders, who have called for it to be withdrawn. The dispute highlights divisions within the Republican Party over campaign strategy and could affect the Ohio governor’s race. Crypto Briefing reported prediction-market odds of about 82.5% for one outcome and 17.5% for the other, but the article does not clearly identify which candidate each figure represents. The political story has no direct cryptocurrency-market catalyst.

Frax is testing receivables financing on FraxNet, aiming to expand stablecoin use among businesses. The product would let companies borrow against unpaid invoices through onchain lending vaults. Lenders supply capital, which is repaid with returns when customers settle invoices. Frax plans to develop vaults that can finance multiple receivables and accept liquidity from outside lenders. CEO Sam Kazemian said Frax has signed agreements with several large companies, with announcements expected soon. The company is targeting firms with international customers and significant payment flows. Businesses can hold frxUSD and earn up to 5% annually through the sfrxUSD savings product, while keeping funds available for payments or collateral. Frax says frxUSD has about $100 million in circulation and more than $10 million in daily minting, redemptions and transfers; the reported transaction volume has not been independently verified. FraxNet already supports business accounts for minting and redeeming frxUSD through banking infrastructure, while receivables financing and FraxPay integrations remain in development. The initiative reflects Frax’s view that business payments—not just consumer crypto cards—could drive the next phase of stablecoin adoption. Kazemian said user experience, trust, education and switching costs remain barriers. For traders, the lending product and pending company announcements are potential adoption catalysts, but they are still developing and do not yet establish material demand for frxUSD.

OpenZeppelin has released audited Confidential Token contracts for Stellar in version 0.8.0 of its Stellar library. The contracts let users make token balances and transfer amounts private while transactions still settle on the public network. The Confidential Tokens are designed for institutional and commercial uses such as payroll, treasury transfers and settlement. The contracts follow the ERC-7984 interface and include compliance controls such as configurable identity policies, scoped auditor access, selective disclosure, account freezing and authorized asset recovery. In this release, they work as wrappers for existing SEP-41 tokens; direct confidential issuance is not yet included. OpenZeppelin says its audit covers the onchain contracts and circuits, while the SDK and client tools remain an unaudited demo in development. The release adds privacy infrastructure to Stellar, but does not announce a new token or commercial deployment.

NEAR says all Chain Signatures operations now run inside trusted execution environments (TEEs), allowing their execution to be independently verified onchain. The network uses Intel TDX hardware and a threshold of 11 signers out of 17 independent operators, including Everstake, Nansen and Bitwise. Chain Signatures lets a NEAR account authorize transactions across blockchains without an intermediary bridge or custodian. It underpins NEAR Intents, which the article says has processed more than $35 billion in cumulative volume in under two years; the system supports more than 35 networks. A new Read MPC process also checks cross-chain deposits against a quorum of RPC providers. The upgrades strengthen the security and transparency of NEAR’s cross-chain infrastructure, though the article notes that post-quantum protection remains under research. For traders, the development may support confidence in NEAR’s long-term ecosystem, but it does not by itself establish an immediate token-price catalyst.

Artenis (ATNS) began trading against USDT on LBank on October 7, 2026, following the close of its presale. The ERC-20 token has a stated fixed supply of 50 million and is intended to support participation in GMA’s art- and culture-focused Web3 ecosystem. GMA plans to connect an art and design marketplace, digital certification, community features and a Virtual Museum that remains in development. Its white paper describes possible ATNS uses such as marketplace activity, memberships, events, digital access and NFT integrations. These services and token functions are still being developed, so their adoption will be important to ATNS’s longer-term utility. Hacken’s public assessment describes the token contract as immutable and non-upgradeable, with no further minting or burning. It reports two findings as resolved and flags the concentration of the initial supply in a Safe multisignature treasury as an operational consideration. The audit does not assess the wider ecosystem or predict market performance. GMA says ATNS does not confer ownership, profit rights or guaranteed returns. The LBank listing adds a live trading venue, but ATNS remains a volatile digital asset.

A VentureBeat Intelligence survey found that 79% of 218 enterprises running AI in production used their GPUs at 50% capacity or less between July and September. In the September survey, the figure was 81%, while 31% of respondents said their GPUs were doing useful work no more than a quarter of the time. Despite low GPU utilization, 70% of respondents reporting underused hardware said they plan to adopt a new, additional or replacement AI compute platform within 12 months. In the September wave, 63% of 102 qualified respondents planned a platform change or addition. Only 10% had a finance-reviewed return on investment for their existing infrastructure, and 12% reported using specialized AI cloud providers such as CoreWeave or Lambda. The findings point to a mismatch between GPU utilization and continued AI infrastructure investment. Some planned changes may replace unsuitable systems rather than add capacity. The trend could create opportunities for providers offering better workload optimization or alternative compute models. Future GPU utilization and spending data will show whether enterprises can reduce idle capacity and demonstrate clearer returns.

US spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $635.6 million in outflows on Thursday, according to Farside Investors, as rising oil prices renewed risk-off sentiment. BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust saw the largest withdrawals at more than $254 million, followed by Fidelity’s fund at nearly $218 million. Bitcoin briefly fell below $81,000 and was later trading near $81,669, down about 1% over 24 hours. The withdrawals came after tensions in the Middle East pushed Brent crude to a five-month high, raising concerns about energy supply disruptions and the potential for higher interest rates. Higher rates can weigh on Bitcoin and other risk assets by tightening liquidity. Despite Thursday’s outflows, spot Bitcoin ETFs had attracted more than $439 million in net investment over the week. Bitcoin has rebounded in recent months after trading well below its October 2025 record of $126,080. The latest ETF outflows point to renewed short-term caution, although the broader weekly inflow remained positive.

Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko said the network should prioritize applications with substantial assets under management and retail trading volume. He named Phantom, Pump.fun, Fomo, Jupiter and Kamino, placing their needs ahead of validators, developers, market makers and core engineers. Yakovenko made the comments in an Oct. 23 post responding to criticism of Ethereum protocol designers’ use of their own network. He praised the Ethereum Foundation for considering Aave’s need for reliable transaction processing during congestion or outages. The remarks describe a priority for Solana network optimization, not a specific upgrade or change to validator rules. Yakovenko announced no funding, implementation timeline or new arrangements with the named apps. The comments may renew discussion about whether Solana should focus network design on high-volume consumer applications, but they do not by themselves indicate an immediate change to SOL’s fundamentals.