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Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller has proposed a new initiative to offer "skinny" master accounts to financial institutions focused on payments innovation, such as those in the crypto sector. This proposal aims to provide these institutions with qualified access to the Fed's direct payment systems on a faster timeline, something that crypto-focused entities have previously struggled to secure. Master accounts are crucial for functioning as a national bank, allowing direct access to the Fed's payment rails without relying on third-party banks. This move could potentially reshape the banking landscape in the United States, granting crypto banks significant privileges, even if they are restricted from certain benefits, which could impact various parts of the industry like stablecoin issuers and crypto exchanges.
However, these "skinny" master accounts would come with limitations compared to full-fledged accounts; they would exclude benefits such as earning interest on balances or having overdraft privileges, and they might also impose balance caps to manage risk for the Federal Reserve and the payment system. While the plan offers a streamlined path, some industry figures, such as Caitlin Long of Custodia Bank, have expressed caution, noting that the new program's eligibility rules for "legally eligible entities" could still exclude certain key players, like trust companies that custody crypto assets and are unable to receive deposits. Updates on the potential implementation of this plan, which follows a surge in bank charter applications from major crypto entities, are expected soon as the Fed conducts outreach to interested stakeholders. Source
Crypto executives widely agree that the concept of a self-sovereign city, fully powered by cryptographic and decentralized systems, is an immense technical and logistical challenge, and past attempts at building these "crypto cities" have largely failed. Examples of these unsuccessful high-profile ventures include Akon City, announced in 2018 as a $6 billion smart city with a crypto-powered economy before being officially abandoned, and Satoshi Island, launched in 2021 to create a home for crypto professionals but which is still struggling to establish essential services and secure its necessary agreements. Experts believe these projects fail because they focus on the impossible goal of building entirely new, autonomous, blockchain-based cities from scratch, arguing that a more viable approach is to modernize existing financial and governmental infrastructure by integrating technologies like blockchain and artificial intelligence to enhance transparency, accountability, and intelligent decision-making, which would eventually turn every city into a "crypto city" through technological evolution rather than ideological foundation.
While some believe a pure crypto city is possible in an ungoverned area like international waters, requiring blockchain for security and transparency across all sectors like energy and food, this approach faces severe practical risks, including vulnerability to attacks, lack of essential services like hospitals and police, and conflicts with governments seeking to enforce taxes and local laws. A more realistic and widely favoured blueprint involves establishing special, crypto-native zones or "regulatory sandboxes" within modern, state-backed cities that already have digitized government services, such as Dubai or Kyiv. Executives suggest that success hinges on having a government partner that delegates regulation and visa authority, securing multibillion-dollar capital, and establishing clear crypto rules, alongside anchor employers in AI and biotech. The consensus is that the true value lies not in creating isolated enclaves for tech elites, but in developing controlled zones within established cities to test new technologies like tokenized property rights or AI data governance, feeding those lessons back into national policy. Source
Solana Mobile has announced it will no longer provide software updates and security patches for its first-generation crypto-focused Android phone, the Solana Saga, effectively discontinuing support for the 20,000 devices produced. While the firm will still handle general inquiries, no new software or security patches will be released for the device, which was last updated to Android 14 with its final security patch from November 2024. The Saga, which launched in April 2023 and gained popularity due to lucrative associated crypto airdrops, is now becoming obsolete in just over two years—a significantly shorter support lifecycle compared to the seven-year windows offered by major competitors like Apple and Google for their mobile devices. Despite the end of software support, existing devices remain operational, and their core crypto features, including the secure seed vault, continue to function as normal, with wallets restorable on other devices.
The shift in focus marks Solana Mobile's full commitment to its successor, the Seeker, a second-generation, cheaper, and similarly crypto-centric mobile phone. The Seeker, which began shipping in August after garnering over 150,000 pre-sale orders, features upgraded hardware, the familiar built-in Seed Vault, and new features like the SeekerID and an improved decentralized app store. Crucially, the new device will also introduce a native ecosystem token, SKR, designed to incentivize builders and users of the platform, a move intended to align the ecosystem's interests. The Seeker has been reviewed as a capable, mid-range Android phone that offers a more measured and user-friendly experience than the Saga at half the initial launch price. Source
Ethereum is moving into the final testnet phase for its Fusaka upgrade, which is anticipated to deploy on the mainnet on December 3. This upgrade, which is a major step in Ethereum's roadmap, introduces a per-transaction gas cap of about 16.78 million units, a key change already live on the Holesky and Sepolia testnets. The purpose of this cap is to prevent a single transaction from consuming the entire block gas limit—which was previously up to 45 million—thereby mitigating potential denial-of-service risks and enhancing block efficiency and predictability. Alongside increasing the full block gas limit from 45 million to 60 million, the upgrade also paves the way for future scalability improvements, including the parallel execution planned for the subsequent Glamsterdam upgrade, which allows multiple transactions to process simultaneously.
The Fusaka upgrade (EIP-7825) is the latest in a series of planned updates following Dencun and Pectra, and its most significant feature is PeerDAS (Peer Data Availability Sampling). PeerDAS enhances Layer 2 scaling by allowing Ethereum nodes to store only small, random segments of Layer 2 "blob" data, rather than the entire dataset. This method reduces hardware requirements and facilitates cheaper, higher-throughput scaling for Layer 2 networks while maintaining network security. The testnet upgrades, including the upcoming rollout on the Hoodi testnet on October 28, are vital for building confidence by enabling client teams and the ecosystem to rigorously validate performance and fine-tune parameters before the final mainnet activation in December 2025. Source
The typically bullish month of October, often dubbed "Uptober" in the crypto community, appears to be faltering this year as major cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum experience declines, defying historical trends. Bitcoin is down 4% for the month, significantly below its historical October average return of 19.84%, while Ethereum has fallen 5%, and altcoins such as Solana have seen double-digit drops. This reversal follows an initial wave of enthusiasm at the start of the month that briefly pushed Bitcoin to $126,200 from $115,000. However, macroeconomic pressures, particularly a U.S.-China trade war, triggered a sharp selloff from which the crypto market has not yet recovered, even as the S&P 500 has regained its losses.
Analysts suggest the correction period is continuing, with on-chain data and failed rallies indicating a bearish short-term outlook. Bitcoin has struggled to hold gains, failing multiple attempts to push beyond $113,000 and experiencing sharp intraday swings that reflect a highly cautious market sentiment. Experts note the market is torn between optimism over potential institutional adoption and pessimism driven by tightening global liquidity and macroeconomic uncertainty. This volatility is considered "unsurprising" given a historic liquidation cascade earlier in the month, with the near-term future for crypto looking bleak until these broader economic factors stabilize. Source
Lending protocol Aave has partnered with onchain credit platform Maple Finance to integrate institutional capital with decentralized liquidity, introducing Maple’s yield-bearing stablecoins, syrupUSDC and syrupUSDT, to Aave's markets. SyrupUSDC will be listed in Aave’s core market, while syrupUSDT will be available in its Plasma instance. These tokens are backed by assets from Maple’s onchain credit pools, which manage billions of dollars in institutional capital from allocators and borrowers. This move is designed to stabilize borrow demand and improve capital efficiency across Aave’s markets, helping the protocol, which allows users to deposit crypto to earn yield or borrow against their holdings, to diversify its liquidity sources and balance borrowing activity.
The partnership comes as decentralized lending protocols have seen significant growth, rising over 72% between the start of the year and September 3, with momentum driven by rising institutional use of stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets. Maple Finance is a part of this trend, with its total value locked surging from $296.9 million on January 1, 2025, to $2.78 billion. The company has also expanded its syrupUSD stablecoin to the Solana blockchain. This rebound follows challenges faced by Maple in 2022, including loan defaults due to exposure to entities connected with the collapse of FTX-Alameda. Source
Bitcoin and Ethereum saw price increases on Tuesday, climbing to around $112,000 and $4,000 respectively, a move that coincided with a significant drop in the price of gold. The precious metal retreated from its recent record high, experiencing its largest daily drop in over a decade. Analysts suggested this shift indicates a renewed willingness among investors to take on risk. Factors cited for this rotation include easing geopolitical tensions, particularly regarding US-China trade relations after comments from President Trump, and strong corporate earnings reports on Wall Street. This suggests that capital is moving away from the "safe haven" of gold and into higher-risk, growth-oriented assets like cryptocurrencies.
Market experts viewed the sudden drop in gold as a technical correction or an unwinding of overextended positions, rather than a fundamental change in the market structure. They noted that gold had become a "crowded trade" fueled by narratives around US dollar debasement. The divergence between Bitcoin and gold was interpreted as a "tactical rotation," with capital seeking assets with more upside potential amidst hopes for dovish policy from the Federal Reserve. Analysts anticipate that the Federal Reserve will likely cut interest rates, which typically benefits risk assets such as stocks and cryptocurrencies by making borrowing cheaper. The upcoming release of the Consumer Price Index figures is expected to be a key market driver. Source
Markethive is actively building a comprehensive ecosystem, aiming to mirror the rapid success of Binance by integrating its native utility token, Hivecoin (HVC), into its entire platform, which includes social media, inbound marketing, and broadcasting. The article draws a strong parallel between Markethive's strategic focus on utility and the approach taken by Binance, whose BNB token became highly valuable after it was integrated to offer users substantial discounts on trading fees and for other services. Just as Binance’s founder, Changpeng Zhao (CZ), utilized his deep market experience to launch a customer-centric exchange, Markethive's founder, Thomas Prendergast, is leveraging his long entrepreneurial history in marketing to create an equitable, decentralized "Market Network." The core function of HVC is to facilitate transactions, purchases like advertising and subscriptions at a discount, and reward users for engagement, creating a foundational basis for its value distinct from purely speculative assets.
To accelerate its launch onto an exchange and reward its community, Markethive is implementing a significant incentive program designed to boost user portfolios by up to ten times. This initiative, described as a strategic airdrop, will reward active community members with HVC tokens based on their total spending within the Markethive ecosystem over the preceding year. The more a user spends on services like subscriptions and boosts, the higher the conversion rate of their expenditure into HVC, with the highest tier offering ten HVC for every dollar spent above $50,001. This distribution is capped at 20 million HVC and is intended to stimulate internal economic activity, attract new users, and create a strong, engaged user base, positioning Markethive to potentially achieve explosive growth similar to BNB's early surge. Source
Kraken co-CEO Dave Ripley has countered criticism from a senior executive at the American Bankers Association who argued that offering yields on stablecoins is a “detriment” to banks’ ability to support their communities. Ripley asserted that consumers should have the freedom to choose where they hold value and how they send it, pushing back against the idea that stablecoins should only be for payments and not act as a store of value. He contended that banks have long earned fees on customer assets without providing benefits, suggesting the crypto industry is building a more accessible system that offers services typically reserved for the wealthy to everyone. The debate highlights the vast difference in potential returns, as some crypto platforms offer yields up to 5% on stablecoin deposits, significantly higher than the US national average savings rate of 0.6% and even the best high-interest bank rates of around 4%.
Other figures in the crypto space echoed Ripley's sentiment, viewing the bankers’ concerns as an attempt by traditional finance to protect its turf from competition. This pushback comes amid increasing tensions between the crypto industry and traditional financial institutions, both within the US and internationally, with reports of banking barriers for crypto users in places like Australia. Furthermore, some argue that certain stablecoins may be safer than commercial bank deposits, noting their backing by reserves held in highly stable assets like short-term US Treasury bills or systemically important banks. The discussion follows the recent signing of the GENIUS Act in the US, a regulatory framework for stablecoins signaling their potential move toward mainstream adoption. Source
Michael Saylor’s company, Strategy, which is focused on digital asset treasury, has recently added another $18.8 million worth of Bitcoin (BTC) to its holdings. Saylor disclosed that the firm acquired 168 Bitcoin at an average price of $112,051 per BTC. This latest purchase brings Strategy’s total Bitcoin reserves to 640,418 BTC, which were obtained for an approximate total of $47.40 billion, resulting in an average cost of roughly $74,010 per Bitcoin. Saylor also noted that Strategy has achieved a year-to-date yield of 26.0% on its BTC holdings, solidifying its position as the world's largest corporate Bitcoin holder and the first company to exclusively use BTC as its treasury asset.
At the time of writing, BTC was trading at $110,845, showing a more than 2% gain in 24 hours but a nearly 3.5% decline over the past week. Earlier this year, Saylor expressed extreme optimism about Bitcoin’s future, predicting that it will bypass future boom-and-bust cycles and reach $1 million, stating that the "winter’s not coming back." He attributes his bullish outlook to the increasing institutional adoption fueled by the Trump Administration's positive stance on crypto and the fact that banks are now custodizing Bitcoin. Saylor also highlighted the limited daily supply of Bitcoin from miners, which is about 450 BTC or $50 million, suggesting that if this amount is consistently purchased, the price must increase to attract new sellers. Source
Top stock exchanges in India, Hong Kong, and Australia are imposing restrictions or blocking companies that aim to operate as digital asset treasury (DAT) vehicles, often citing concerns about "cash companies" and the potential for these firms to be used as empty shell companies. Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing Ltd. has already rejected at least five such companies based on rules against firms holding primarily liquid assets. Similarly, the Bombay Stock Exchange rejected a listing application from a company planning to invest proceeds into crypto, while the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) effectively makes the DAT model unfeasible by barring listed companies from having more than half of their balance sheets in cash-like assets such as crypto. These exchanges are concerned that companies may be "selling their listed status" instead of conducting legitimate operating businesses, and regulators prefer listed entities to have real operations rather than being mere investment vehicles.
In contrast to the major pushback seen in other countries, Japan remains an outlier, with its stock exchanges open to the DAT concept provided there is proper disclosure, hosting 14 listed Bitcoin buyers, including the major company Metaplanet. However, the broader model is facing challenges globally; DAT shares have been declining in value recently, with many trading at or below their net asset values following market corrections. Researchers have suggested that the "age of financial magic is ending for Bitcoin treasury companies," pointing to slumping share prices and suggesting that the DAT bubble may have burst. Source
Binance Wallet has recently banned over 600 user accounts for illicitly manipulating an airdrop initiative, specifically the Binance Alpha program, through the use of fraudulent automated methods such as bot farms. This widespread enforcement action is motivated by the exchange's stated dedication to maintaining fairness across its platform and safeguarding its user base. The bans specifically address coordinated bot activity that contravenes the official terms of use set by the exchange for its services. Binance Alpha itself is an integrated feature within Binance Wallet, designed to offer secure and accessible airdrop rewards with the goal of fostering broader Web3 participation among its users.
The company frames this decisive action as a reinforcement of its commitment to operational integrity, simultaneously introducing a new measure to involve the community in its anti-fraud efforts. Users are now encouraged to report any suspicious activities they observe using an official channel. To incentivize this vigilance, the exchange is offering rewards that can be as high as 50% of any earnings recovered as a result of a verified tip-off. To be effective in combating fraud, Binance has requested that all submitted reports include thorough details, such as relevant screenshots and specific User IDs (UIDs), emphasizing the collaborative role of the community in upholding security. Source
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong announced that the company is working on enabling private stablecoin transactions on its Ethereum layer-two network, Base. This initiative, aimed at improving privacy on public blockchains, follows Coinbase's acquisition of the crypto privacy platform Iron Fish in March. Armstrong's team is leveraging the technology from Iron Fish to deliver this capability. The CEO stated that more details would be shared soon, although he did not address immediate public questions regarding whether the privacy solution would mandate Know Your Client checks. Users often seek privacy-shielded transactions to protect financial data, maintain secrecy from public view, and reduce the risk of targeting by hackers or scammers.
However, the implementation might not be fully private due to Iron Fish’s existing framework. Iron Fish's platform uses zero-knowledge proofs and "view keys," which allow users to keep transactions private but also enable disclosure of data if requested by a tax authority or law enforcement agency. Users are issued these view keys upon account creation, giving them the ability to grant read-only access to authorities. Furthermore, Iron Fish’s solution, which is already available for privacy transactions on over 20 blockchains including a private version of wrapped USDC on Base, utilizes the cross-chain bridge ChainPort, which employs a real-time threat detection system to ensure that only "clean funds" enter the network. Source
Solana founder Anatoly Yakovenko briefly caused a stir in the crypto community after code for a decentralized perpetual futures exchange, dubbed Percolator, was spotted on his Github. The discovery led to immediate speculation that a major new rival to platforms like Hyperliquid might be coming to the Solana network, which currently lacks a strong competitor in the perp DEX sector. Yakovenko quickly clarified that the code was a result of him "messing around" with the AI tool Claude and that he had made the repository public by accident, confirming he was not actively developing the platform. Despite this, the would-be project, which was described as "implementation-ready," captured the attention of the community, highlighting the intense interest in perpetual futures exchanges.
Although Yakovenko dismissed the accidental release, he encouraged other developers to "steal the idea" and launch a competitor, emphasizing the need for more competition in the sector, a sentiment echoed by others in the Solana ecosystem. The excitement over the leaked code even spurred market activity, with a Solana meme coin launched on Pump.fun and named after the project soaring to a $6.23 million market capitalization before subsequently crashing following Yakovenko's clarification. The article notes that perpetual futures are a huge business in crypto, with fierce competition over offering high leverage, which some experts warn is creating systemic risk after a recent, record-breaking $19 billion liquidation event. Source
Several major crypto wallet providers, including MetaMask and Phantom, have partnered with the Security Alliance (SEAL) to launch a global, real-time phishing defense network aimed at combating the rising threat of "crypto drainers" which stole over $400 million in the first half of 2025. This collaboration, described as a "decentralized immune system" for crypto security, includes key players like WalletConnect and Backpack. The network will work alongside SEAL's new system for "verifiable phishing reports," which allows security researchers to provide proof that reported malicious websites actually contain phishing content. The core goal is to enable a rapid, shared defense mechanism where anyone with a valid report can instantly trigger a phishing warning across all participating wallets, thereby preventing major phishing attacks and accelerating response times against new threats that are constantly evolving their tactics to evade traditional security measures.
The motivation behind this joint effort is the sophistication of crypto drainers, which are constantly changing their methods, such as rotating landing pages quickly, moving to offshore hosting, and using cloaking techniques to avoid detection and blocklists. The partnership establishes an efficient, end-to-end process where user-submitted reports are automatically verified and immediately shared across all network participants, providing quicker, effective protection against emerging phishing campaigns. The Security Alliance’s plan is to deploy this shared threat intelligence to as many wallets as possible to ensure widespread coverage and protection for more users across the entire ecosystem. Phishing attacks were the most frequent cause of security incidents in the first half of the year, underscoring the necessity of this coordinated industry response to safeguard user funds. Source
Disclaimer: These articles are provided for informational purposes only. They are not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or any other advice.
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