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Bitwise’s NEAR ETF begins trading on NYSE Arca as the token rallies more than 160% over the past month and activity on NEAR Intents grows. Crypto asset manager Bitwise has launched the first US spot exchange-traded product tracking NEAR, giving investors exposure to the token through a fund trading on NYSE Arca.
Bitcoin failed to make another run at $85,000 as sellers held the line above current levels, while surging US bond yields weighed on stocks and precious metals. Bitcoin (BTC) reversed its latest gains after Tuesday’s Wall Street open as US bond yields continued to set multidecade highs. Key points: Data from TradingView showed a local rally to $84,540 stalling as the US trading session began, with BTC/USD retreating below its daily opening level near $83,600.
Gracy Chen said she saw the 2025 Bybit hack as a “good reference point” for Bitget’s security breach, noting that only a small percentage of funds had been frozen or recovered. The CEO of crypto exchange Bitget isn’t sure that the company can fully freeze or recover all the assets compromised in a security breach last week that resulted in the loss of $388 million in crypto. Speaking on Cointelegraph’s Chain Reaction released Tuesday, Bitget CEO Gracy Chen said she was looking at the February 2025 hack of crypto exchange Bybit as a “good reference point” for Thursday’s breach. Hackers stole about $1.5 billion worth of Ether (ETH) from Bybit, and the company reported only freezing and recovering a combined $80 million. “I’m actually not very optimistic because after a year or so of Bybit’s…
An October pullback could offer a buying opportunity before Bitcoin’s next cycle peak, which Brandt expects between $300,000 and $600,000. He’s not sold on “fool coin” XRP. Veteran trader Peter Brandt called October 4 as the day Bitcoin’s bear market would end, but now he thinks the market beat him to it. “There’s a good possibility we have seen the low and now are entering a new bull market cycle in Bitcoin,” Brandt tells Cointelegraph on the latest episode of Trade Secrets. In July, Brandt warned that prices could fall into the high-$40,000 range. Bitcoin was trading near $64,000 when that interview was published and climbed to almost $85,000 by his latest appearance.
CoinShares says IBIT offers clues to institutional buying, but basis trades mean inflows are not necessarily bets on rising Bitcoin prices. Billions are flowing back into Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), but the figures alone do not reveal how much of the demand comes from institutions, according to CoinShares. US crypto investment products had attracted about $4.1 billion in September, with BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT) accounting for more than 53% of those inflows, CoinShares head of research James Butterfill told Cointelegraph. Crypto investment products attracted about $3.5 billion across the industry over the preceding five trading days, CoinShares said in a Sept. 25 market update.
The ECB is seeking firms to explore AI agents and machine-to-machine interactions as it prepares a separate digital euro pilot for 2027. The European Central Bank is seeking fintechs, payment firms and other organizations to explore the use of AI agents in digital euro payments. The ECB opened applications on Monday for a new round of its digital euro innovation platform, dividing the program between hands-on testing of payment features and workshops on future digital euro uses. The experimentation track will run from January through June 2027, with selected participants developing prototypes for e-receipts, multiparty transactions, conditional payments and new front-end features.
Glamsterdam will bring proposer-builder separation, block-level access lists and new gas pricing, while its mainnet date remains unset. Ethereum developers have scheduled the network’s next major upgrade, Glamsterdam, to activate on the Sepolia testnet on Oct. 6. Sepolia node operators must update both their execution-layer and consensus-layer clients before the activation, the Ethereum Foundation said Monday. One of Glamsterdam’s changes is enshrined proposer-builder separation. It will move the handoff between specialized block builders and validators into Ethereum’s protocol, reducing reliance on outside middleware.
US spot crypto ETF inflows fell about 80% from Friday as Bitcoin, Ether, Solana and XRP funds attracted $64.8 million combined on Monday. US spot crypto exchange-traded fund (ETF) attracted about $64.8 million on inflows continued to cool on Monday, down roughly 80% from Friday after a strong week of buying. SoSoValue data showed US spot Bitcoin (BTC) ETFs led Monday’s inflows with $31.07 million, followed by $17.1 million for Ether (ETH) ETFs. Solana (SOL) funds recorded $12.7 million, while XRP (XRP) ETFs drew $3.96 million. The four categories attracted roughly $330.8 million on Friday. Bitcoin funds drew $134.47, while Ether took in $86.95 million, Solana $86.7 million and XRP $22.65 million.
Bitcoin price action consolidated after early-week losses while protecting a “trend-defining” support zone. Bitcoin (BTC) preserved crucial support into Tuesday as analysis warned of a new profit-taking surge. Key points:
Greece joined the EU MiCA register with four providers as HCMC expanded its denial of remarks attributed to officials in a report on Binance. Greece has entered the European Union’s crypto regulatory register for the first time, with four providers added. Four Greek providers — BCash, Xenios Blockchain Group, Capital Wallet Greece and Piraeus Bank — appeared on the European Securities and Markets Authority’s (ESMA) Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) register updated Thursday. Six other crypto-asset service providers from Germany, France and Slovenia were added, bringing the register to 359 unique providers.
BitMine could reach 5% of Ether’s supply by early November, while Tom Lee has left open whether it would continue buying beyond that level. Ethereum treasury company BitMine Immersion Technologies could reach its goal of holding 5% of Ether’s supply by early November if its recent buying pace continues. A Cointelegraph review of BitMine’s 12 weekly updates issued from July 13 through Sept. 28 shows the company reported acquiring about 259,000 Ether (ETH), averaging roughly 21,600 ETH per week. BitMine reported 6,001,302 ETH as of Sunday, equal to 4.9% of the 122.1 million ETH supply it cited. At this supply level, 5% would equate to about 6.105 million ETH, leaving BitMine roughly 103,700 ETH short. Maintaining its 12-week average purchase rate would close the gap in about 4.8 weeks, tho…
The disclosure came as Senate Democratic investigators alleged USDT had become a key part of Iran’s shadow banking network. Stablecoin issuer Tether said it helped authorities freeze nearly $550 million in Iran-linked USDT during 2026, as a Senate Democrat called for an investigation into the stablecoin issuer on Monday. In a statement on Monday, the company said it has been working closely with international law enforcement for years. This year alone, it froze more than $130 million in USDT across four wallets, and in April, it froze more than $344 million linked to the Central Bank of Iran. “Tether has consistently demonstrated that USDT is not a haven for sanctioned actors, terrorist organizations or criminal networks,” said Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino.
Coinbase joins Kraken in bringing US derivatives infrastructure in-house, after Kraken’s parent acquired Bitnomial and its CFTC-regulated exchange, clearinghouse and brokerage in May. Coinbase has received approval from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to launch Coinbase Clearing LLC, its own US-based derivatives clearing organization. The registration became effective Monday, permitting the clearinghouse to clear fully collateralized futures, options on futures and swaps, though the registration does not permit the clearinghouse to clear its leveraged products. “Today’s CFTC approval completes Coinbase’s end-to-end derivatives infrastructure, enabling us to bring more regulated derivatives products to market with native USDC collateral and 24/7 settlement,” said Molly Abr…
The launch comes after several AI agents breached their testing environments this year, adding to calls for companies to slow the development of autonomous AI systems. Chipmaker Nvidia has announced a new software platform that aims to address recent concerns about artificial intelligence agents “going rogue” and breaching their testing environments. On Monday, Nvidia introduced its Open Agent Safety Platform with over 100 industry partners. The platform combines OpenShell, an open-source runtime that runs agents in sandboxed environments and controls their access to files, tools and networks, with Sentry, a separate hardware security layer that monitors agents and can quarantine them if they attempt to cross those boundaries. “AI’s extraordinary potential for society will only be realized…
The cross-chain protocol said it actively prevents stolen funds from being laundered, drawing a contrast with THORChain’s position that it does not selectively censor transactions. NEAR Intents said it blocked more than $50 million in attempted transfers linked to the Bitget hack. Attackers stole $387.5 million from Bitget on Thursday. A significant portion of these funds moved across chains to Ethereum, according to Alex Shevchenko, general manager of NEAR Intents, a protocol that lets users swap crypto assets across blockchains. Shevchenko said its SHIELD system detected and blocked more than $50 million in attempted transfers, which subsequently went to other providers. It managed to freeze $503,000 in funds during execution, while around $166,000 in suspected stolen funds passed thro…
Aiden Pleterski was allegedly behind a crypto Ponzi scheme between 2021 and 2022 that resulted in a kidnapping and related criminal charges. The criminal trial for a self-described ‘crypto king’ who allegedly defrauded investors with claims of large profits on digital assets is set to begin next week, more than two years after charges were filed in Canada. On Oct. 5, Aiden Pleterski, a social media personality who allegedly defrauded his followers out of about $30 million between 2021 and 2022, will appear for his criminal trial in Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice. Canadian authorities charged Pleterski with money laundering and fraud in May 2024 after he allegedly solicited investments and made false claims related to “large weekly profits through savvy investments.” According to a Mon…
The crypto company is seeking a valuation of up to $6 billion, well below its 2022 peak, as recently listed crypto stocks struggle to hold their gains. Blockchain.com, a crypto exchange and wallet provider, is reportedly looking to raise about $500 million in an initial public offering (IPO) this year, more than four years after the company reached a $14 billion valuation at the height of the previous crypto boom. Citing people familiar with the matter, Bloomberg reported Monday that Blockchain.com was seeking an IPO valuation of between $4 billion and $6 billion. The company was also open to a smaller offering if needed to complete a public listing. As Cointelegraph reported, Blockchain.com confidentially filed draft registration documents with the US Securities and Exchange Commission in…
With the failed cloture vote on the CLARITY Act, the SEC announced updates on how federal securities laws could apply to token issuers, following similar guidance from the CFTC. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) updated its policies on how securities laws will apply to “certain types of crypto assets and certain transactions involving crypto assets,” following a similar move by the country’s federal commodities regulator last week. In a Friday update to the SEC’s frequently asked questions issued in March, the agency said that the latest interpretation of its rules on crypto was non-binding, had “no legal force or effect, [did] not alter or amend applicable law, and [did] not create any new or additional obligations for any person.” The FAQs would apply to how the SEC conside…
Eligible institutions can pledge Benji-issued fund shares for stablecoin credit lines while keeping the underlying assets in off-exchange custody. Franklin Templeton has partnered with Bybit on a program that lets institutional investors use tokenized shares of its money market funds as trading collateral, expanding their use beyond a simple buy-and-hold investment. The companies announced Monday that eligible clients can pledge fund shares issued through Franklin Templeton’s Benji platform while the assets remain in off-exchange custody. In return, clients can access credit lines denominated in the USDT or USDC stablecoins to trade on Bybit without selling the fund shares or transferring them onto the exchange. The arrangement allows institutions to keep earning yield on their money marke…
Fairshake pledged an initial $30 million on media opposing the Democratic candidate in Ohio’s Senate race in what some see as a repeat of spending by the crypto industry in 2024. A political action committee (PAC) aligned with and largely funded by the cryptocurrency industry reported spending more than $11 million on ads supporting Republican Jon Husted and opposing Democrat Sherrod Brown in a race for one of Ohio’s seats in the US Senate. In a Thursday filing with the Federal Election Commission (FEC), the Defend American Jobs PAC, affiliated with the Coinbase- and Ripple Labs-backed group Fairshake, reported spending $11.4 million on media supporting Husted and opposing Brown’s potential return to the Senate. The ad buys appeared to be part of Fairshake’s pledge to initially spend $30 m…
