Daily Brief

Santiment Points Back to Ethereum's June 5 Rebound Santiment linked the latest spike to June 5, when about 223,800 ETH left exchanges.

Ethereum (ETH) saw roughly 169,770 coins leave exchanges on net, per Santiment. That marked its largest outflow day in over 4 months, a pattern last seen just before June's rebound. Fewer coins on exchanges usually means less supply ready for sellers. However, US spot Ethereum funds have bled $1.18 billion in October, so buyers have yet to follow. That day, ETH sank to its lowest price since April 2025. That outflow marked a local buy point, with the price recovering quickly. Still, the firm cautioned that history does not guarantee a repeat. However, fund data suggests many buyers are still waiting. ETF Money and US Buyers Keep Their Distance US spot Ethereum exchange-traded funds (ETFs) recorded net outflows on 14 of 16 trading days in October, per SoSoValue. Those withdrawals totaled $1.18 billion through October 22. Over the same stretch, total net assets slipped to $14.57 billion, the lowest since August 21. Ethereum spot ETF daily net flows, Source: SoSoValue Coinbase buyers look equally hesitant. CryptoQuant's Coinbase Premium Index read -0.134 after sliding through most of October. A negative reading means ETH trades lower on Coinbase than on Binance, often read as weaker US demand. Ethereum Coinbase Premium Index, Source: CryptoQuant Exchange-wide cash has thinned too. BeInCrypto reported that stablecoin reserves on major exchanges have drained since April, leaving less fresh money to buy dips. That gap between tightening supply and hesitant demand leaves analysts divided on where ETH settles. Where Analysts Expect Ethereum to Find Its Footing ETH traded at $2,377.29 as of publication, down 1.03% over the past 24 hours. That leaves it just below $2,400, which Santiment called the immediate pivot. Ethereum price performance, Source: BeInCrypto Markets A sustained reclaim of $2,500 would strengthen the bottoming case, according to the firm. Analyst Ted Pillows sets a slightly higher bar for a trend change. $ETH tapped the $2,350-$$2,360 support zone and is now bouncing back. Overall momentum is still weak for Ethereum and it won't change until it reclaims $2,550. He expects new highs once the correction ends. Meanwhile, analyst Ash Crypto pointed to a bullish inverse head and shoulders pattern forming on the weekly chart. He added that the upside could be significant if the setup plays out. If outflows continue while ETH holds above $2,330, the June comparison may stay alive. A break lower would put van de Poppe's sub-$2,300 zone in play.

Ethereum exchange net inflow/outflow chart, Source: X/Santiment If large outflows continue while ETH holds current levels, the firm said supply would increasingly favor buyers.

Sources: BeInCrypto.

In practice, that means Google isn't scanning private emails and photos wholesale to sell ads, but users who opt into its AI conveniences may be trading some ad privacy for them.

The change, which took effect Oct. 16 and was first spotted by Android Authority, adds a conditional clause to a pledge Google has made for years. The updated policy now reads that Google doesn't show personalized ads based on content from Drive, Gmail, or Google Photos unless you choose to make data from these services available to other Google services that support personalized ads. The catch hinges on Personal Intelligence, Google's push to make its AI tools more useful by letting features like AI Mode in Search and Gemini draw on a user's own data. Connecting Gmail, Drive or Photos to those tools delivers more tailored answers, such as surfacing a hotel reservation buried in an inbox. But under the revised wording, that same connected data can now also inform which ads a person sees. Content from the three services still isn't used for ad targeting by default, advertisers don't get access to the contents of anyone's Gmail, Drive or Photos, and the company says it won't share personally identifying details without permission. Users can opt out by disconnecting the apps under Connected Content apps in their Google Account's Data & privacy settings, or by turning off personalized recommendations, though Android Authority noted that previously collected data may linger in a user's Search history even after disconnecting. The quiet rollout echoes recent Google privacy posturing around its AI ambitions. As Decrypt reported in May, Google's Chrome browser began silently installing a multi-gigabyte on-device AI model on users' computers, and separately removed a privacy claim tied to its Gemini Nano model, both moves that drew scrutiny over how the company handles user data as it races to embed AI across its products. Start every day with the top news stories right now, plus original features, a podcast, videos and more.

Sources: Decrypt.

Copilot passes because the Government Offices reviewed it and raised its security settings after the review—something it did not do for ChatGPT or Claude.

Sweden's Government Offices—the administrative body supporting the prime minister and cabinet—will block ChatGPT and Claude on staff computers from Monday, directing civil servants to Microsoft's Copilot as the only approved AI tool, according to Sweden's national, publicly funded radio broadcaster Sveriges Radio. The reasoning comes from Mikael Wettercrantz, the Government Offices' director of digitalisation, who posted on the staff intranet that using AI services without a formal contract can have consequences for our information security. The examples concern both the sensitivity of the information that has been entered and how the AI-generated responses have been handled, he said. Consumer AI tools without formal agreements send user queries to external company servers—and U.S. law allows authorities to compel those companies to hand over data on request. A formal security agreement, at minimum, defines what the provider can and cannot do with government employees' inputs, which is why the distinction between a vetted enterprise contract and an open consumer tool matters here. Some employees can still access both blocked tools through an AI platform the Government Offices built internally, though the press office hasn't said how many people that covers or what restrictions apply. Sweden's Tax Agency and the National Board of Institutional Care have already imposed similar bans on consumer AI tools. The Enforcement Authority—the agency responsible for debt collection and enforcing court orders—is preparing a decision of its own. An internal audit at the Transport Administration separately found roughly 10 AI services being used there in a widespread and risky way. AI Fears Grow as Germany, France, Sweden, and Canada Voice Concerns European government concerns about AI data security have been building since Italy's ChatGPT ban in 2023. Sweden is now drawing a narrower line than Brussels, sanctioning one U.S. tech company's product while shutting out two others. Microsoft incorporated Claude models into Copilot in early 2026. In the EU—where Sweden sits—Anthropic's models default to off and require administrators to deliberately enable them. Sweden's Government Offices has not confirmed whether its Copilot instance has Claude switched on, which means the distinction between the "banned" AI and the "approved" one is not as clean as the announcement implies.

The European Parliament went further in February, disabling AI features across all its work devices—ChatGPT, Claude, and Copilot included—after concluding it could not guarantee the security of data those tools processed.

Sources: Decrypt.

Cash reserves provide a buffer, although Strategy has already sold some bitcoin to fund preferred dividends, he added.

Bitcoin BTC $84,459.46 treasury companies like Strategy (MSTR) and Strive (ASST), whose purchases help maintain demand for the largest cryptocurrency, have a tough balancing act, according to Fidelity Digital Assets and analysts who spoke to CoinDesk. On the one hand, they need cash to fund their purchases. On the other, they need to maintain investor appetite for new sales of the perpetual preferred stock that is their favored fundraising vehicle. As the number of shares in circulation grows, so do the dividend payments. The securities, which sit between debt and common equity in the capital structure with regular payouts and no voting rights, have financed purchases of some 136,000 bitcoin in the 20 months since their introduction, Fidelity research analyst Zack Wainwright wrote in a Tuesday report. That's more than 0.5% of the cryptocurrency's maximum supply. Strategy, the largest corporate bitcoin holder, is the dominant company in the market. Its preferred shares — it has five different classes — make it a bellwether for the model's durability. Its first offering, STRK, debuted in February 2025. Fidelity puts the bitcoin-focused preferred market at roughly $12 billion. The global fixed-income market is $150 trillion, suggesting there's room for growth. By selling preferred shares that offer dividends without a fixed maturity, the companies reduce refinancing pressure while attracting investors reluctant to own bitcoin directly. Perpetual preferreds have brought bitcoin to income investors, a group that ETFs never reached, said Mark Palmer, a senior equity research analyst at StoneX. Over the long run, I expect ETFs to be a larger source of demand for bitcoin, with perpetual preferred offerings acting as a second tailwind addressing a different type of investor (yield investors), Rasmussen said. James Butterfill, CoinShares' head of research, said STRC alone, which pays a variable dividend currently around 12%, raised $7.5 billion during 2026 through late July. Alex Blume, the founder and CEO of institutional bitcoin asset manager Two Prime, pointed out that products such as STRC and Strive's SATA don't offer just exposure to bitcoin prices. Their price also reacts to management competence, issuers' obligations and capital-market conditions. He cited STRC briefly falling into the $70 range in late June as evidence of potential volatility. Growing issuance creates a tension between increasing bitcoin per common share, meeting dollar-denominated dividend-payout commitments and avoiding bitcoin sales, he said. The Strategy preferred stock currently trades around $99.40. The catch is that the demand for perpetual preferreds is reflexive, Palmer said. Continued preferred-funded buying depends on the securities trading at or near par, he added. Below par, fresh issuance becomes less attractive, and companies may favor repurchases, Butterfill said. Strategy's latest weekly update reported $193 million spent repurchasing STRC alongside purchases of just 267 bitcoin, according to Butterfill. The firm also increased its preferred-stock repurchase authorization to $3 billion, he said. Buybacks can reduce future dividend costs, but they compete with bitcoin purchases for capital today, Butterfill said. U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs have attracted approximately $57 billion in cumulative net inflows and hold around $106 billion in assets, Butterfill said. Net ETF creations increase funds' bitcoin holdings, while issuance of preferred stock gives management discretion over spending. Redemptions can reverse ETF demand but leave no continuing dividend commitment, he said. Butterfill sees preferreds amplifying the cycle: supporting purchases when financing conditions are favorable, with that support weakening as sentiment deteriorates. GENIUS pushes yield off-chain; TAM grows to $4B in 3 years. Diversified RWA stablecoins sustain 5-7% yield from real credit as crypto funding compresses to ~4%. Disclosure & Polices: CoinDesk is an award-winning media outlet that covers the cryptocurrency industry. Its journalists abide by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk has adopted a set of principles aimed at ensuring the integrity, editorial independence and freedom from bias of its publications. CoinDesk is part of Bullish (NYSE: BLSH), an institutionally focused global digital asset platform that provides market infrastructure and information services. Bullish owns and invests in digital asset businesses and digital assets and CoinDesk employees, including journalists, may receive Bullish equity-based compensation.

Ryan Rasmussen, the head of research at Bitwise, also sees the products attracting buyers who might avoid bitcoin exchange-traded funds, though he expects the ETFs to remain the bigger demand channel.

Sources: CoinDesk.

Bitcoin (BTC) slipped below $80,000 on Saturday as more than $200 million in crypto positions were liquidated within an hour.

Traders betting on higher prices accounted for $191.33 million of that total. BeInCrypto Markets data shows the total crypto market cap down 4.06% over the past 24 hours, at $2.72 trillion. The liquidation data shows who absorbed most of the losses. Bullish Traders Absorb the Heaviest Losses The hourly wave formed part of a larger 24-hour total. Data from Coinglass shows $837.12 million in liquidations over that period, hitting 227,681 traders. Long positions made up 82.8% of that figure, or $693.05 million. Bitcoin led the tally with $232.55 million, followed by Ethereum at $181.51 million. Longs accounted for more than 93% of each. Bitcoin and Ethereum crypto liquidations heatmap over 24 hours. Price data shows how far the sell-off reached beyond derivatives. This marked its lowest level since September 18. Bitcoin price daily chart shows BTC below $80,000. Ethereum lost 4.71% over the same period to $2,288.73, its lowest level in about two months. Zcash (ZEC) posted the steepest decline in the top 10, sliding 8.39% to $1,124.36. Bitcoin now sits below $80,000, the average price that companies holding Bitcoin on their balance sheets paid per coin, according to Glassnode estimates. That puts the average corporate treasury position at a loss. He said the scenario becomes void if Bitcoin climbs back above $83,000 and holds there. Below that, a support zone sits between roughly $76,700 and $72,500. The market has tested similar ground this month. On October 8, total crypto market cap fell to $2.69 trillion before a Trump pledge on Iran eased the pressure. Today's $2.72 trillion sits about 1% above that floor. $BTC and $ETH are selling off on an illiquid weekend. The Federal Reserve meets on October 27 and 28, and September Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) inflation data follows on October 29. Brent crude also settled at $116.72 on Friday, a level that could keep inflation elevated. Whether buyers defend $77,876 before those events could decide how much room Bitcoin has left.

Earlier on Saturday, analyst Benjamin Cowen warned that a weekly close below $83,000 on October 25 would support his bearish path.

Sources: BeInCrypto.

In its October 17-23 Token Pulse report, Bitunix found that roughly 80% of the 300 largest tokens it tracks lost value.

Bitcoin has spent October making both bulls and bears look foolish. It slipped below $80,000 last week, recovered toward $84,000 this week, then fell back toward $81,000. Each reversal has exposed how little confidence there is behind it. The damage is much worse beneath Bitcoin's price. Their median weekly return was 3.98%, compared with Bitcoin's relatively modest 0.71% decline. Cardano, NEAR and SUI lost more than 5%. An overall crypto market recovery becomes harder to sustain when most cryptocurrencies are still falling. Expectations for US interest rates have shifted repeatedly. Early-week comments about labor-market weakness encouraged hopes of further Federal Reserve cuts. Stronger economic data then challenged expectations for rapid easing, sending it lower again, according to Bitunix. US spot Bitcoin ETFs attracted $526.7 million on October 19 and $524.8 million on October 21. That represents a remarkable $1.16 billion swing in net flows between consecutive sessions. Macro Pressure on Crypto Markets The pressure extends beyond crypto. In Bitunix's weekly stock-contract review, Intel fell 10.52% and Micron declined 8.05%. On October 22, the Nasdaq lost 2.6% as investors questioned the enormous cost of the AI boom. Bitcoin fell alongside technology shares as investors reduced their appetite for risk. Brent gained 6.8% over Bitunix's reporting period amid escalating Middle East tensions. Lighter's LIT gained 12.19% over seven days, supported by stronger platform activity and plans to seek US derivatives registrations. Yet it dropped more than 11% in the final 24 hours. BTC and ETH faced ETF outflows while derivatives longs remained elevated, as TRX showed relative resilience. The Federal Reserve meets October 27-28, followed by the September core PCE inflation report on October 29. Annual core PCE inflation stood at 3.0% in August, still above the Fed's 2% target. Cooler inflation or reassuring Fed guidance could help Bitcoin challenge 84,000-85,000 again. Persistent inflation, further ETF withdrawals or another technology-stock selloff could bring $80,000 back into focus. For now, repeated recoveries show buyers remain willing to step in near $80,000. The sharp reversals suggest they have yet to establish control. October's volatility reflects a market with buyers at lower prices, but limited confidence in a sustained rally.

More expensive energy could keep inflation elevated, making interest-rate cuts harder to justify.

Sources: BeInCrypto.

Block said it trained Dessa from scratch using a single Nvidia GB200 NVL72 computing system.

Jack Dorsey's payments company Block XYZ $76.45 · Market Closed has unveiled a voice AI model that sounds remarkably human in company demonstrations, prompting reactions ranging from amazement at its conversational abilities to warnings that such technology could make phone scams harder to detect. Called Dessa, the model was trained entirely on human speech rather than text and can listen while speaking, allowing it to handle interruptions, laughter and changes in tone during a conversation, according to the Block's announcement. In one demonstration, Dessa laughs in the middle of a sentence; in another, it reacts to a surprise with what sounds like genuine emotion. Block says the conversations were recorded live without anyone directing the model's responses. Unlike systems that first convert speech into text before generating a spoken response, Dessa processes audio directly. The model is compact enough to run locally on a MacBook Pro equipped with an M4 Max chip or better, according to the firm's statement. For now, Dessa remains a research preview rather than a publicly available product. Dessa's demo quickly drew attention on social media, with some users praising how natural the interactions sounded. X user Alexander Hoff said he had never heard anything artificial that sounded so… human, while user Hesamation described it as straight up sci-fi stuff. Teaching kids in current 'AI voice' was a challenge, Zhao wrote, referring to his education project. But the same humanlike qualities that impressed some listeners raised concerns among others about the technology's potential for deception. Filmmaker Justine Bateman questioned why AI voices need to sound human, arguing that it could be used to mislead people. So you can trick people into lowering their guard, she wrote. Journalist Shiv Aroor raised similar concerns about fraud, writing, Scam calls about to attain pandemic level. Dessa comes from Block, which operates Square, Cash App, bitcoin wallet Bitkey and bitcoin mining hardware unit Proto. Its AI research lab reports directly to Dorsey and includes former staff from Toronto-based AI startup Dessa, which Square acquired in 2020. Block has not disclosed the model's size, benchmark results or a public release date. Its audio samples remain company demonstrations rather than independent tests. The company is offering early access to a small group of AI safety researchers. Block says speech-based AI could eventually become better at recognizing emotional cues, such as distress and pain, that text transcripts can miss, while researchers assess risks the company may have overlooked. Diversified RWA stablecoins sustain 5-7% yield from real credit as crypto funding compresses to ~4%. GENIUS pushes yield off-chain; TAM grows to $4B in 3 years. Disclosure & Polices: CoinDesk is an award-winning media outlet that covers the cryptocurrency industry. Its journalists abide by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk has adopted a set of principles aimed at ensuring the integrity, editorial independence and freedom from bias of its publications. CoinDesk is part of Bullish (NYSE: BLSH), an institutionally focused global digital asset platform that provides market infrastructure and information services. Bullish owns and invests in digital asset businesses and digital assets and CoinDesk employees, including journalists, may receive Bullish equity-based compensation.

Binance founder Changpeng "CZ" Zhao also chimed in, pointing to potential uses in education, where natural voice interactions could help children learn through conversation.

Sources: CoinDesk.

The U.S. is quickly evacuating personnel from embassies and military bases throughout the Middle East as intelligence suggests Iran is prepping attacks against Americans, the WSJ reported Saturday morning.

Iran has substantially increased efforts to target U.S. personnel, wrote Jay Clayton, the director of national intelligence, in a Friday memo to Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The lethal plotting efforts by the Iranians against U.S. citizens have reached advanced stages in both the Middle East and certain other countries. These evacuations appear to go well beyond reports from earlier this week that the U.S. was ordering some diplomatic staff in Saudi Arabia to vacate. President Trump, meanwhile, has threatened a re-escalation in the war against Iran after the midterms in early November. Crypto prices are sinking to multi-week lows, with bitcoin now down by 2.2% over the past 24 hours to $79,700. Ether, XRP, and solana are down in the 3%-4% range. Diversified RWA stablecoins sustain 5-7% yield from real credit as crypto funding compresses to ~4%. GENIUS pushes yield off-chain; TAM grows to $4B in 3 years. Disclosure & Polices: CoinDesk is an award-winning media outlet that covers the cryptocurrency industry. Its journalists abide by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk has adopted a set of principles aimed at ensuring the integrity, editorial independence and freedom from bias of its publications. CoinDesk is part of Bullish (NYSE: BLSH), an institutionally focused global digital asset platform that provides market infrastructure and information services.

Bullish owns and invests in digital asset businesses and digital assets and CoinDesk employees, including journalists, may receive Bullish equity-based compensation.

Sources: CoinDesk.

Bowling told Decrypt that throughout his two decades in the video game industry, publishers have been the "only ones" pushing to cut physical discs.

Ultimately, he said, the movement was an attempt by publishers to maximize profits and fight back against the resale market. Robert Bowling, former Infinity Ward creative strategist for the Call of Duty franchise from 2006 to 2012, told Decrypt that he first heard conversations about cutting discs as far back as 2007—during the production of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. At one point, it was floated by an executive at Activision [the Call of Duty publisher] that if we went entirely digital and stopped printing on discs, they could avoid the resell conversation entirely, and they'd control the market for their games, Bowling told Decrypt. Bowling added that behind the scenes, publishers were attempting to convince GameStop to share its revenue from second-hand games. That battle was won by GameStop, so publishers looked to cut discs to kill the resale market entirely. It was at that point that I raised the concern that we'd be trading the freedom and joy of collecting games purely for a profit increase, he said. That felt counter to our culture as gamers and game developers. It comes amid controversy over Sony's decision to discontinue discs as of 2028. The move has attracted pushback from consumers, with more than 387,000 people signing a " Don't Kill the Disc " petition. Meanwhile, PlayStation founder Ken Kutaragi came to Sony's defence, claiming that it's a " mentality issue " if gamers are upset by the decision to cut discs. Mentality Issue': PlayStation Founder Waves Away Disc Ownership Anger After six years at Infinity Ward, Bowling went on to work on several other major titles like Battlefield V, Apex Legends, and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order as a creative consultant at Electronic Arts. In 2021, Bowling co-founded Midnight Society to build crypto extraction shooter Deadrop, but left in 2025 as funding ran dry. Bravo, which is currently developing a first-person shooter. This is because, he said, publishers are motivated by increasing their profit margins, by reducing production costs, and squashing the second-hand game market. It speaks to the divide that has formed in our industry between those who see games as just a software product and those who see them as something more like art, entertainment, as collectibles, and a lifestyle, Bowling said. The only reason Sony didn't make the move back in 2007 is that consumer habits have since flipped, he said, as more gamers buy digital over physical. Sony Says You Don't Own the Games You Bought. Crypto Says It Can Fix That Sony argues that purchasing a digital game from the PlayStation Store does not constitute ownership of that game, according to court filings. Rather, Sony says, Store purchases equate to a license that can be revoked at any time. Whether our players actually own the games they purchase from us matters, Bowling said. As developers, we are making games to be purchased and enjoyed. It's publishers, like Sony, that are pushing the pure business side of the industry, and ignoring how impactful the end result is to our lives. Activision did not immediately respond to Decrypt's request for comment.

It would also evade the disc fee charged by Xbox and PlayStation to have your game on an Xbox disc or PlayStation disc.

Sources: Decrypt.

The firm said it has been reaching out to issuers that are or may become involved with its own tokenized stocks, including through webinars explaining the different trading models, shareholder rights and potential trade-offs.

The SEC's new framework for tokenized stock trading looked, at first glance, roughly a month ago, like a fast track to putting U.S. equities on crypto rails. A growing group of public companies has objected to having their shares traded on the tokenized-securities venue being built by OKX and Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the owner of the New York Stock Exchange. This week's of objections included some of the biggest names yet: Microsoft (MSFT), Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL), Goldman Sachs (GS) McDonalds (MCD) and three others on Monday, then Wells Fargo (WFC) and Cisco (CSCO) and four more firms on Friday rejected having tokenized versions of their shares traded on OKXICE, bringing the disclosed total now to 22 objecting issuers. But it also isn't necessarily a major blow to the SEC's experiment. If the company stays silent, trading can begin. That gives public companies a say in whether unaffiliated third parties tokenize and trade their shares, but it also tilts the decision toward caution. Global law firm Latham & Watkins has warned issuers that silence effectively becomes an irrevocable decision: the SEC order provides no mechanism to object after the 30-day window or withdraw a prior non-objection once trading begins. So when a legal or investor-relations team receives notice about a new market structure it may know little about, saying no while it figures things out can be the rational choice. Most of these companies had no idea a third party had tokenized their stock until the OKXICE notice went up, Dave Hendricks, CEO and founder of tokenization firm Vertalo, told CoinDesk. If those questions can't be answered within 30 days, he said, objecting makes sense. Olivia Vande Woude, head of tokenization at Ava Labs, also cautioned against reading the growing list as a verdict on OKXICE. It's the first venue to send notices under the SEC's Innovation Exemption, so it's the first to get the answers, she said. And because objecting costs nothing while silence counts as consent, she expects the list to keep growing. Given how easy the opt-out is, the list of objectors is likely to keep growing, and the next venue that sends notices should expect similar resistance, Vande Woude said. That may be less a sign that the experiment is failing than an indication of what the experiment is uncovering. This exemption is a data-gathering exercise, Vande Woude said. What it's showing is that public companies want a say in how their shares come onchain. Nasdaq offers a useful example of what the objections do - and don't - mean. The exchange operator has been a vocal supporter of tokenization and is pursuing its own model for tokenized securities. But Nasdaq Inc., whose shares trade under NDAQ, said it intends to object to having tokenized versions of its own stock traded on TSVs under the current exemption. Nasdaq warned that TSVs operating outside the National Market System (NMS) could fragment liquidity, weaken price discovery and lack safeguards such as real-time best-price display and consolidated-tape reporting. Its own model keeps tokenized securities inside the existing exchange framework. Reid Noch, vice president of U.S. equity market structure at TD Securities, told CoinDesk the bigger issue is that the upside for issuers remains difficult to quantify. Tokenization could bring additional demand for U.S. shares, particularly from overseas investors, but the SEC framework may not generate enough new demand to offset the risks of thin, 24/7 trading outside the familiar market structure. Securitize (SECZ), which specializes in tokenized securities, told CoinDesk it does not plan to object to inclusion on the OKX-ICE venue. A representative of digital asset custodian BitGo (BTGO) also said in an email that the company won't object to the listing. Both have an obvious interest in helping the tokenized-asset market grow, but Securitize's response also pointed to what may be needed for more traditional companies to get comfortable. That probably offers the clearest glimpse of what comes next: Education and time. The SEC may have removed one regulatory barrier to tokenized stock trading. Getting public companies comfortable enough to use it could take considerably longer. Diversified RWA stablecoins sustain 5-7% yield from real credit as crypto funding compresses to ~4%. GENIUS pushes yield off-chain; TAM grows to $4B in 3 years. Disclosure & Polices: CoinDesk is an award-winning media outlet that covers the cryptocurrency industry. Its journalists abide by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk has adopted a set of principles aimed at ensuring the integrity, editorial independence and freedom from bias of its publications. CoinDesk is part of Bullish (NYSE: BLSH), an institutionally focused global digital asset platform that provides market infrastructure and information services. Bullish owns and invests in digital asset businesses and digital assets and CoinDesk employees, including journalists, may receive Bullish equity-based compensation.

Seeing some of the world's largest companies say no may not exactly be the start that tokenization advocates had hoped for.

Sources: CoinDesk.

Amex's earnings per share rose 13%, but its underlying pretax profit grew just 1.6%.

American Express (Amex) shares closed 3.62% lower on Friday. This came as a surprise, as the credit card giant exceeded Q3 profit estimates. Amex is also taking a $336 million restructuring charge tied to the plan. Amex Wants Fewer Layers Before It Hands Work to AI Chief Financial Officer Christophe Le Caillec gave CNBC three reasons for the move. To make Amex leaner To make the company more agile To prepare it for AI He also explained why the job cuts have to come before the automation. So what we're doing here is to reduce layers and increase spans of controls, so that we can automate and take advantage of AI in the coming quarters and the coming years, Le Caillec said. Amex is not the only lender cutting staff. A day earlier, Barclays confirmed it would cut 5,000 jobs, about 5% of its workforce, in a tech-driven cost push. Six of the biggest US banks also shed 15,000 employees while lifting first-quarter profits 18% to $47 billion. At Amex, the restructuring also shows up in the profit forecast. The company is paying for it with part of the one-time gain. American Express stock price chart on October 23, 2026. The problem was how the company achieved those profits. Much of the earnings growth came from a lower tax bill and share buybacks, rather than stronger business performance. Meanwhile, Amex raised its annual profit forecast, but the increase was largely driven by a one-time gain from selling a business stake. Excluding that gain and restructuring costs, its outlook improved only slightly. For investors, the results suggested Amex's underlying business was growing more slowly than its headline earnings implied. That disappointment, combined with uncertainty around its AI restructuring plans and a broader market sell-off, likely contributed to Friday's decline.

The company also announced plans to cut about 5% of its 77,000 global workforce to prepare for AI.

Sources: BeInCrypto.

An Argentine federal judge has dismissed the criminal case against President Javier Milei over his promotion of LIBRA, a memecoin that crashed soon after its launch in February 2025.

The ruling also covers Milei's sister Karina, the presidency's secretary general. U.S. businessman Hayden Davis, who described himself as an adviser to the token's launch, was also covered by the dismissal, Reuters reported. In all, 11 people were cleared, including lobbyist Mauricio Novelli and KIP Protocol CEO Julian Peh, according to Infobae. None of them had been formally questioned in the case. Judge Marcelo Martínez de Giorgi acknowledged that Milei's endorsement could have given the launch "greater impact," but said his social media post and LIBRA's subsequent collapse were insufficient to establish fraud without evidence of a specific deception, the report adds, citing court records. The judge also found no evidence that Karina Milei sought or received money in exchange for access to the president, or that proceeds from LIBRA reached public officials, according to Argentine fact-checking outlet Chequeado. Davis subsequently denied making any payments to either Milei or his sister. Milei promoted LIBRA on X on Feb. 14, 2025, saying the Solana-based token would help fund small businesses in Argentina. It rose exponentially before losing more than 90% of its value, leading to the destruction of over $250 million in investor wealth. Blockchain researchers found that eight wallets linked to the token's creator had withdrawn around $99 million in crypto, according to the report. Davis said he held close to $100 million after the crash but denied wrongdoing. Milei later deleted his post and denied ties to LIBRA. He said he had acted in good faith and pulled his support after learning more about the project. In an official statement, the president's office said the judge granted a prosecutor's request to dismiss the case because the acts under review did not constitute a crime. It characterized the probe, opened ahead of Argentina's 2025 midterm elections, as an attempt to harm Milei's reputation in an election year. Prosecutor Eduardo Taiano, who requested the dismissal, is not expected to appeal. In July, the judge removed the investors who had joined the case as plaintiffs, and an appeals court upheld that decision in September. Those investors have challenged their removal before the Federal Criminal Cassation Court. If they are reinstated, they could appeal the dismissal. Diversified RWA stablecoins sustain 5-7% yield from real credit as crypto funding compresses to ~4%. GENIUS pushes yield off-chain; TAM grows to $4B in 3 years. Disclosure & Polices: CoinDesk is an award-winning media outlet that covers the cryptocurrency industry. Its journalists abide by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk has adopted a set of principles aimed at ensuring the integrity, editorial independence and freedom from bias of its publications. CoinDesk is part of Bullish (NYSE: BLSH), an institutionally focused global digital asset platform that provides market infrastructure and information services. Bullish owns and invests in digital asset businesses and digital assets and CoinDesk employees, including journalists, may receive Bullish equity-based compensation.

In February 2025, CoinDesk reported that it had obtained text messages in which Davis bragged about buying access to the president's inner circle, sent money to Karina Milei, and claimed he could influence the president's decisions.

Sources: CoinDesk.

Wells Fargo and ARM were not among them, while Cisco, Moderna, Intuit and Marvell were included.

Cisco (CSCO), Wells Fargo (WFC) and four other companies have opted out of plans by crypto exchange OKX and New York Stock Exchange parent Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) to offer blockchain-based trading of their shares, bringing the total objections to 22 as issuers weigh participation in the SEC's new framework for tokenized stocks. The companies, along with Arm Holdings (ARM), Moderna (MRNA), Intuit (INTU) and Marvell Technology (MRVL), were named in an updated public notice filed Friday by OKXICE, the two firms' joint venture. The additions extend a list that already included some of the world's largest publicly traded companies, such as Microsoft MSFT $524.32 · Market Closed, Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL), Goldman Sachs (GS) and McDonald's and said no to the venue's plan in recent weeks. The SEC's five-year " Innovation Exemption " allows qualifying tokenized securities venues, or TSVs, to test trading through automated market makers — software that executes trades using pools of assets — while giving issuers a say in whether their shares participate. OKXICE, backed by one of the world's biggest exchange operators, issued its initial public notice on Oct. 4, outlining plans to use Uniswap (UNI) liquidity pools on OKX's XLayer blockchain, with transactions settled in stablecoins. Venues must notify issuers and give them 30 days to object before offering tokenized versions of their shares. The venture's original proposed trading roster covered 62 companies. That means the 22 objections cannot all be counted as departures from the original selection. Cerebras Systems, whose objection was disclosed earlier, was also outside that roster. An objection blocks trading on the notifying venue but does not establish opposition to every form of stock tokenization. Andrew Cuomo, OKXICE's co-chairman and former New York governor, said earlier this week that such responses were expected. Limits on participating companies and trading volumes make the framework "a sandbox — a model demonstration," he said. Diversified RWA stablecoins sustain 5-7% yield from real credit as crypto funding compresses to ~4%. GENIUS pushes yield off-chain; TAM grows to $4B in 3 years. Disclosure & Polices: CoinDesk is an award-winning media outlet that covers the cryptocurrency industry. Its journalists abide by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk has adopted a set of principles aimed at ensuring the integrity, editorial independence and freedom from bias of its publications. CoinDesk is part of Bullish (NYSE: BLSH), an institutionally focused global digital asset platform that provides market infrastructure and information services. Bullish owns and invests in digital asset businesses and digital assets and CoinDesk employees, including journalists, may receive Bullish equity-based compensation.

The growing number of objections signals a hurdle for a new market structure that would let U.S. investors trade stocks around the clock on blockchains.

Sources: CoinDesk.

Xapo currently advertises a variable base rate of 4.1% on dollar savings, paid in bitcoin, alongside a temporary 4.6% introductory rate for eligible new members.

Wealthy bitcoin BTC $84,459.46 holders are increasingly treating their cryptocurrency as an asset to borrow against and generate income from, marking a shift from speculation toward private banking, according to Xapo Bank CEO Seamus Rocca. Customers are looking for yield and alpha, Rocca told CoinDesk in an interview, pointing to demand from funds and family offices for accumulation and income products. The behavior reflects bitcoin's growing maturity, he said. Five or six years ago, the cryptocurrency was primarily viewed as a trading and speculative asset. Today, more holders want financial services built around their existing wealth. Xapo grew out of a bitcoin custody business known for its Swiss bunker storage. Its customers include early adopters who have experienced several halvings (the periodic reductions in new bitcoin issuance), and the rallies and downturns surrounding them. The bank charges an annual membership fee of $1,000, combining dollar banking with access to bitcoin custody, investments and borrowing. Some of the earliest adopters became more willing to take profits as bitcoin reached record prices, having watched gains disappear in previous downturns, Rocca said. Others, including investors who entered around 2018 and 2019, remain determined to hold and prefer borrowing against their coins when they need liquidity. For the profit-takers, selling does not necessarily mean abandoning bitcoin. Some keep the proceeds in dollar savings accounts and receive interest in BTC, gradually rebuilding their cryptocurrency holdings while retaining cash. It's a separate bitcoin credit fund that targets annual returns of up to 4% through lending, exposing investors to credit and counterparty risk. The theme of this cycle is yield, accumulation, income generation, Rocca said. Borrowing allows customers to retain exposure to future bitcoin gains, although they also remain exposed to price declines while taking on debt. Traditional banks increasingly acknowledge that clients want bitcoin exposure, Rocca said. Their interest in custody and investment products represents a substantial change from the skepticism he encountered when he began working in crypto in 2016. Big banks are slow, he said, describing institutions where new products require committee approvals and employees are reluctant to champion activities perceived as risky. Political and regulatory uncertainty adds to that caution. Banks that previously feared repercussions from serving crypto businesses need confidence that a more accommodating environment will endure before committing resources, he said. For now, some institutions are doing enough to meet customer demand through investment products, while stopping short of services that let clients borrow against or directly manage bitcoin wealth. Them being slow is a good opportunity for firms like Xapo Bank, Rocca said. He also sees benefits in a measured approach, arguing that another failure involving poorly managed crypto businesses could damage confidence in bitcoin itself. Rocca expects bitcoin's next phase of growth to depend on more institutions making long-term allocations. He argues that some participation through exchange-traded funds (ETFs) has involved arbitrage strategies, which differ from a corporate treasurer deciding to allocate a portion of the company's assets to bitcoin. Reduced geopolitical and regulatory uncertainty could help unlock those allocations, potentially pushing bitcoin to $250,000 over the next two to three years, in his view. Xapo's customers are less united about the immediate outlook. Some are buying because they believe the market has bottomed out; others are keeping their savings in dollars because they expect further declines, while earning interest in bitcoin. For Rocca, that mix still points toward accumulation and demand for banking services that help holders build their positions over several years. GENIUS pushes yield off-chain; TAM grows to $4B in 3 years. Diversified RWA stablecoins sustain 5-7% yield from real credit as crypto funding compresses to ~4%. Disclosure & Polices: CoinDesk is an award-winning media outlet that covers the cryptocurrency industry. Its journalists abide by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk has adopted a set of principles aimed at ensuring the integrity, editorial independence and freedom from bias of its publications. CoinDesk is part of Bullish (NYSE: BLSH), an institutionally focused global digital asset platform that provides market infrastructure and information services. Bullish owns and invests in digital asset businesses and digital assets and CoinDesk employees, including journalists, may receive Bullish equity-based compensation.

At the Gibraltar-based bank, customers are seeking cash without selling their bitcoin, putting some of their holdings into income-generating investments, or accumulating more BTC through interest paid on dollar savings, he said.

Sources: CoinDesk.

HSBC got its issuer license from the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, the city's de facto central bank, in April, under a regime that took effect in August 2025.

Banking giant HSBC switched on RedCoin on Friday, a Hong Kong dollar stablecoin that more than 3.3 million PayMe users will be able to activate in the coming days to pay friends or shop at more than 100,000 merchants, according to the bank's announcement. This is only the beginning, John O'Neill, HSBC's managing director of digital assets and currencies, said. A stablecoin is a crypto token designed to always be worth one unit of a regular currency, so one RedCoin (ticker RCHKD) should equal one Hong Kong dollar. Until now, stablecoins have mostly been a crypto-company business. Tether's USDT and Circle's USDC dominate a market worth more than $300 billion, and most of that money lives on trading platforms, not at the corner noodle shop. It beat a crowded field of at least 36 companies competing by September of that year. HSBC's reserve tracker showed roughly $10.2 million in RedCoin circulating shortly after launch—pocket change next to USDT—backed by $10.4 million held entirely in cash. RedCoin also runs on HSBC's own private ledger rather than a public blockchain like Ethereum, and balances can't even move between PayMe and HSBC's banking app. It isn't a bank deposit either, so Hong Kong's Deposit Protection Scheme, the statutory insurance on savings accounts, doesn't cover it. Later this year, HSBC plans to bring the token to its HK Mobile Banking app, where customers will be able to buy into a tokenized share class of its long-running Hong Kong dollar money market fund (a low-risk fund that parks cash in short-term debt). Tokenized simply means ownership is recorded as a digital token on a ledger instead of in a traditional registry. Goldman Sachs, BofA Among 21 Banks Planning Joint Dollar Stablecoin Launch Other banks want the same slice of everyday payments. In September, 21 lenders including Goldman Sachs and Bank of America announced plans for a joint dollar stablecoin, targeting a launch in the first half of 2027. HSBC says the first independent attestation of RedCoin's reserves, an outside auditor's report confirming the cash is really there, is expected after the fourth quarter of 2026.

In practice, someone in Hong Kong can now pay for lunch with blockchain-based money issued by the same bank that may already hold their salary, without ever opening a crypto exchange.

Sources: Decrypt.

Arthur Hayes has sold about $22.28 million in crypto from Maelstrom's directional book.

Hayes, the family office's chief investment officer, confirmed the exit on X and plans to sit out the market.

Sources: BeInCrypto.

Bitcoin Core has changed its security disclosure policy after developers found that some vulnerabilities can be rediscovered with minimal effort, including a simple prompt to an AI model.

The project's October 22 policy update creates a faster route for those bugs. No particular new flaw was announced with the policy change, and an AI-generated report is not automatically a real vulnerability. The change concerns the time between a verified discovery, a patched release and public details. Bitcoin nodes validate blocks and transactions locally, and exchanges, custodians and other services build operations around them. A release may make patched software available across supported versions, yet the operators of those systems decide when to install it. Bitcoin Core does not update itself on every machine. Public disclosure can help people identify a problem and install the fix, while giving an attacker information that an unpatched node might still reveal through its network behavior. JUST IN: Avalanche founder warns AI could steal billions by exploiting crypto software bugs before breaking ECDSA Emin Gün Sirer says vulnerabilities in wallets, libraries and system code pose a more immediate risk than quantum attacks on existing cryptography, making software… Bitcoin Core already classified vulnerabilities as critical, high, medium or low according to their effects and how they could be exploited. A remotely triggered crash under default settings may be high severity; a flaw that requires a nonstandard configuration or causes limited disruption may fall lower. The revised security advisory policy adds a separate question about how easily someone could find the issue. Its example is a simple prompt to a large language model, but the category is not limited to flaws found using AI. A bug can be simple to find and dangerous to affected nodes. Conversely, an obscure issue may have a serious effect if exploited, yet still warrant more time before the details are made public. Maintainers assess a report during triage and choose whether the fast route applies. The posted policy gives the criterion and the planned response, but it does not publish a mechanical threshold for deciding which prompts, tools or skills qualify as minimal effort. Antoine Poinsot, who proposed the website change, said in the pull request discussion that maintainers had received more reports of flaws that were easy to rediscover. He attributed much of the change to language models lowering the effort needed to find certain problems or identify a fix that developers tried to keep discreet. In his account, withholding details offers less protection when another person can independently find the weakness quickly. The same embargo can delay a fixed release for operators who remain on a supported older branch. For a report placed in the new category, Bitcoin Core says it will publish a point release with the fix for each maintained major version and an advisory at the same time. As soon as possible describes an intention, not a fixed number of hours from the first report. Developers still need to confirm the issue, write and review a patch, test it on each branch and prepare releases. The policy does not promise that an unmaintained release will receive a patch or that all operators will have upgraded before the advisory appears. The policy says low severity vulnerabilities are disclosed two weeks after a major version containing the fix is released. Medium and high severity issues are disclosed two weeks after the last affected release reaches end of life, approximately a year after a major version first included the fix. Maintainers make a preannouncement two weeks before revealing an embargoed issue, stating how many vulnerabilities were fixed and their severity levels. Critical flaws sit outside that standard schedule and require a response tailored to the incident. The version 32.0 release notes give a concrete comparison. They say three medium or high severity vulnerabilities fixed in version 30.0 will be disclosed two weeks after the newer release, while there were no low severity vulnerabilities fixed in 32.0 to disclose on that schedule. Version 30.0 is dated October 10, 2025, in Bitcoin Core's lifecycle table. The version 32.0 release schedule records its tag on October 21, 2026. Those dates are 376 days apart, an arithmetic comparison of the older fix date and newer tag, not the project's announced date for an individual advisory. The notes do not identify the components or exploitation conditions of those three flaws. Under the standard process, a fix can remain available in a newer version while details stay private until the older affected branches leave the maintenance window. The new route changes that calculus only for bugs maintainers judge readily discoverable. It does not cancel the long timetable for harder-to-find medium and high severity cases. A past disclosure shows the older path in practice. Bitcoin Core disclosed CVE-2024-52911 in May 2026 after the flaw had already been fixed in version 29.0, released in April 2025. A specially crafted block could trigger a use-after-free condition in the script interpreter and crash vulnerable nodes. Producing a block with enough proof of work made the attack costly, and the project considered remote code execution unlikely. The gap between fix and public details was part of the prior disclosure approach; it does not prove that the old issue would have met today's easy-discovery criterion. Bitcoin Core's software lifecycle says maintainers support the latest three major versions. When a new major release arrives, the oldest of the three reaches end of life and generally stops receiving security fixes. With version 32.0 tagged on October 21 and its release notes saying version 29. X and older have reached end of life, the branches for the new fast route are 30. A point release for each of those branches would let an operator on 30. X apply a targeted patch without adopting every feature and behavior change in 32.0 immediately. The 32.0 release-candidate cycle began on September 14, and the project tagged the stable version on October 21. The distinction between a release tag, a binary and an installed node matters. The schedule shows a 32.0 tag; official distribution and the operator's own deployment are subsequent steps. Its lifecycle page still displayed a "TBA" release date for 32. X at the time this feature was prepared, even though the release schedule showed the tag. X and older have reached end of life. Bitcoin Core has yet to update the 32. A branch that remains supported is not automatically patched. The policy says fixes will be backported to each maintained major version, and the lifecycle page says the bar for backporting generally rises as a branch ages. The new easy-discovery promise is more specific for the security bugs it covers. Maintaining three patched lines requires review and testing across differences in code, rather than simply copying one commit into three directories. A fix that applies cleanly to one branch can need different work on another. Bitcoin Core has not specified a fixed time limit for that work. Operators beyond the three branches face a different decision. X may still start and validate ordinary blocks after end of life, but it generally will not receive a new security point release. An operator running it must move to a maintained branch to obtain future patches.

Maintainers plan to ship a point release for every supported major version as soon as possible and publish a security advisory alongside the fixes.

Sources: crypto.news.

More than 11,000 New Yorkers lost tens of millions of dollars through NovaTech and an earlier crypto mining scheme, AWS Mining, the AG's office said.

Bitcoin Magazine NY Seeks $1.37 Billion Judgment Against Operators of NovaTech Crypto Ponzi Scheme New York Attorney General Letitia James is trying to secure a $1.37 billion judgment against the operators of NovaTech and its predecessor AWS Mining, two successive cryptocurrency investment schemes that allegedly defrauded hundreds of thousands of investors worldwide out of more than $1 billion. Alleged founders Cynthia and Eddy Petion never appeared in court and, according to the AG's office, fled the country. NovaTech and AWS Mining scammed thousands of vulnerable New Yorkers by telling them they were making a safe investment when in reality, they were victims of a pyramid scheme, James said in a statement. These scammers targeted immigrant and religious communities with the promise of a better life but instead robbed them of their life savings. The schemes, AWS Mining and later NovaTech, relied on promoters who recruited heavily in Haitian and other immigrant communities — through prayer groups, WhatsApp chats, and ads in Haitian Creole. AWS Mining sold crypto mining contracts promising 15 to 20 percent monthly returns and 200 percent within 15 months. The Petions then launched NovaTech, marketed as a registered hedge fund broker, promising weekly trading returns of two to four percent — more than 140 percent a year. Records from B2Broker, which supplied NovaTech's white-label trading platform, show that of the more than $1 billion investors deposited between 2019 and 2023, only about $26 million was ever actually traded — and NovaTech's traders lost $18.2 million of that. Returns to earlier investors came from newer deposits, not trading. The AG is also seeking $134.5 million the Petions allegedly withdrew to their own wallets from the investor account Cynthia Petion solely controlled, plus $4.7 million tied to the earlier AWS Mining scheme. A default judgment entered in August 2025 already bars the couple and their companies from the securities, commodities, and cryptocurrency industries. Separately, four of the scheme's top promoters have agreed to pay nearly $6 million in disgorgement to victims and accepted the same industry bans. The request follows an August 2025 default judgment, with the AG also announcing nearly $6 million in settlements with four promoters. New York Attorney General Letitia James has asked a court to order defunct crypto and forex trading platform NovaTech's founders, Cynthia and Eddy Petion, and related companies to pay $1.37 billion over its Ponzi scheme. The AG is seeking the return of about $1.13 billion in investor funds, plus $232.5 million in interest, according to a Thursday court filing. The court found the Petions and the companies liable by default in August 2025 after they failed to respond to the lawsuit. Four people who recruited investors into NovaTech have separately agreed to pay nearly $6 million in settlements intended to benefit victims, according to the AG's office. The complaint alleged that promoters targeted Haitian and other immigrant communities through prayer groups, social media and WhatsApp, promising high returns and recruitment bonuses. The filing says that investors deposited about $1.16 billion into NovaTech's crypto wallets between August 2019 and May 2023. Of that, only about $26 million was deposited with the platform's trading provider, B2Broker, for trading, according to the attorney general. The motion separately seeks about $6.15 million, including interest, over AWS Mining. NovaTech collapsed in 2023, leaving tens of thousands of investors unable to withdraw their funds. James sued NovaTech, AWS Mining and other associated companies in June 2024. Cointelegraph sought comment from the New York Attorney General's Office on how any recovered funds would be distributed to victims and what steps could be taken to enforce the judgment, but had not received a response by publication. All news, reviews, and analyses are produced with full journalistic independence and integrity. For more details on our standards and processes, please read our Editorial Policy.

When NovaTech collapsed in mid-2023, tens of thousands of investors could not withdraw their funds.

Sources: Cointelegraph and Bitcoin Magazine.

The Ethereum Foundation's October 22 notice says Glamsterdam will not activate on Hoodi at 17:42:48 UTC on October 26, and no new epoch has been set.

The October 26 Hoodi test has been pulled, including its planned 200 million gas limit. Developers are examining a repricing proposal against contracts already on mainnet. The accompanying gas-limit increase to 200 million has been taken off the testnet's schedule as well. This is a postponement of future configuration, not a reversal of blocks already recorded by Hoodi. Developers made the decision to investigate how EIP-8037, a change to the price of creating new Ethereum state, interacts with contracts on mainnet. The Foundation has not said the upgrade has broken mainnet. It has not put a date on a production fork either. The immediate operational risk is on Hoodi: clients or custom configurations still carrying the old activation time could disagree with the revised schedule. The deeper question is how to change the cost of work inside a transaction without upsetting applications that embedded the old numbers in code. The October 16 Hoodi announcement specified epoch 132,352 and slot 4,235,264. It paired the execution-layer Amsterdam changes with the consensus-layer Gloas changes and a 200 million gas limit. The new notice supersedes those instructions in full. Operators should read the latest release notes for both types of client; an earlier release described as Glamsterdam-compatible may still contain the now-cancelled Hoodi activation. JUST IN: Ethereum delays Glamsterdam upgrade on Hoodi testnet The Ethereum Foundation postponed the Oct. 26 activation to review how EIP-8037 interacts with mainnet smart contracts, with no new date announced. A validator needs to follow the same network rules as its peers. If part of its software expects new execution rules or consensus duties at the old epoch while the network does not, it can lose the ability to follow the canonical chain. Builder and validator infrastructure may have their own configuration. The Foundation therefore tells operators to verify revised client versions and remove stale custom settings before October 26, rather than assume that doing nothing is safe because a fork was delayed. Sepolia activated Glamsterdam on October 6 and tested a 200 million gas limit, as coverage of that activation recorded. One testnet's successful activation is useful but not conclusive for another. Hoodi's remaining rehearsal has been postponed precisely because the contract investigation needs time. There is no published replacement timestamp to extrapolate into a mainnet date. Glamsterdam activated on Sepolia on October 6, where developers tested a 200 million gas limit. The successful test does not settle how EIP-8037 will affect contracts already running on mainnet. Hoodi's rehearsal is postponed while developers investigate those interactions, and no replacement date has been announced. The sequence has changed more than once this year. September reporting on the Sepolia plan described devnet problems and an EIP-8037 implementation issue before the public test proceeded. Those earlier problems are not proof of the same cause as the October 22 contract inquiry. They show why the dates have been conditional as client teams move from private trials to public networks. Separate concerns about builder behavior on testnets concern another part of Glamsterdam and should not be conflated with repricing. The latest notice gives one specific reason for the Hoodi pause: further investigation of EIP-8037's interaction with mainnet contracts. A transaction can execute calculations and it can leave data that the network must retain and access later. Creating a new account, opening a new storage slot or deploying contract bytecode adds to that persistent state. EIP-8037 proposes charging more for those operations and metering the state-creation part separately. The aim is to put the price closer to the longer-lived burden on nodes, especially if blocks are allowed to carry more work. The proposal's illustrative table puts a new account's state-creation component at 183,600 gas, compared with a current 25,000; a new storage slot at 97,920, compared with 20,000; and a 24 kilobyte deployment at 37,784,880, compared with 4,947,200. The table is not a universal prediction of the ETH fee a user will pay. It isolates a component under a proposed constant, with other execution charges on top, and the final currency cost depends on the gas price at the time. The size of the change explains why contracts with tight limits deserve a closer look. The Foundation's developer impact guide says these gas costs were last substantially adjusted in the Berlin fork in 2021, while the state has grown. The planned repricing was designed alongside work to raise throughput; making blocks larger without accounting for expensive state operations could make validation harder for node operators. The pause therefore touches both application compatibility and the scaling plan, although its announced trigger is the EIP-8037 interaction. An external call shows why this can be difficult to notice in advance. A caller may deliberately pass only enough gas for a recipient to perform a limited action, assuming that any further work will fail safely. If a repriced account or storage access now consumes that allowance, the recipient may fail during a routine payment, even though the user supplied plenty of gas to the outer transaction. Changing the wallet's estimate does not rewrite the internal allowance. Developers need to inspect the code path and the failure handling around it, because some applications regard a failed external call as a reason to revert while others continue and record a different outcome. The Solidity transfer and send patterns historically forward a 2,300-gas stipend. Many teams have already moved away from relying on that stipend, but deployed contracts can remain in use for years. The Foundation identifies fixed stipends as one risk category; it does not say every call using them will fail. A recipient that performs little work may remain within the allowance, while a contract that touches newly repriced state can exceed it. Testing actual counterparties matters more than treating the mere presence of a function name as proof of breakage. A second class of problem lies in automation. Wallets, relayers and custodians may store default gas limits for regular tasks. An operation that ran successfully for years could start running out of gas even though the application contract itself is sound. Raising an estimate at the frontend can fix that route, but a scheduled agent or a customer using an older wallet may continue to submit the previous limit. Developers therefore have to identify not only the affected code, but also the services that construct transactions for it. The Foundation replayed historical mainnet transactions under the proposed schedule. Of the flagged cases, many completed after their gas limit was raised; a smaller group could fail even with substantially more gas. A fixed stipend, a hardcoded amount of gas sent into another contract, or a branch based on the result of gasleft() can change the path a transaction takes. The earlier contract warning described those categories before Hoodi acquired its October date. The current postponement makes the unanswered cases urgent, but it does not show that all Ethereum contracts are vulnerable. Consider an application that sends funds to another contract while providing a fixed gas allowance. The receiving contract may need more gas under the new schedule to touch storage. If the caller's allowance is embedded in deployed code, simply raising the top-level transaction limit may not gi.

Ethereum has called off a test that was due to run next Monday.

Sources: crypto.news.