Some stolen assets have been frozen, but Bitget has yet to disclose how much has been recovered as investigators continue to assess a possible North Korea link. Bitget CEO Gracy Chen said the crypto exchange’s recent $388 million exploit stemmed from a vulnerability in a third-party security product that allowed the attacker to obtain “high-level internal credentials.” In comments to Cointelegraph, Chen said the attacker used those credentials to issue fraudulent withdrawal commands. Bitget’s private keys were not compromised, and its cold wallets were not affected, she said. Bitget said it has since addressed the security flaw and tightened its withdrawal controls, including restricting internal access, adding independent verification for withdrawals and increasing monitoring for unusual…
ESMA will focus on CASP resilience, outsourcing and reverse solicitation while pursuing harmonized reporting across national regulators. The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) will focus its coordination of national crypto supervision in 2027 on operational resilience, outsourcing and firms maintaining sufficient operations inside the bloc as implementation deepens under the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA). ESMA Chair Verena Ross said Monday that the regulator’s focus under MiCA had shifted “from rulemaking towards supervision and convergence.” “We want innovation to flourish within a framework that provides clarity for firms, safeguards for investors and confidence in the markets,” Ross said during a meeting of the European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and M…
Altseason is almost here and early signs suggest traders are becoming more selective, with capital flowing into revenue-generating protocols across a number of different narratives. Altseason may not be officially here, but traders are starting their rotations — and the numbers are getting harder to ignore. Over the past 30 days, memecoin launchpad PONS soared more than 350% in price, while in DeFi, Uniswap’s UNI gained more than 110%, Arbitrum’s ARB jumped over 150% and AI-focused NEAR also shot up around 180%. Privacy token Zcash hit a record high above $1,600 last week, while Bitcoin Layer-2 token LIT and memecoin launchpad token PUMP are also among the biggest gainers over the period, according to CoinMarketCap.
Strategy sold 1.47 million MSTR shares for $246.2 million, using the proceeds for Bitcoin purchases and STRC preferred stock repurchases. Michael Saylor’s Strategy bought 1,665 Bitcoin for $142.7 million last week, lifting its holdings to 847,666 BTC as the company sold common shares to fund the purchase. The company bought the Bitcoin at an average price of $85,681 per coin between Monday and Sunday, Strategy said in a Sept. 28 8-K filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Strategy has spent $63.95 billion on its holdings at an average price of $75,437 per Bitcoin, including fees and expenses. Strategy funded the purchase with proceeds from MSTR stock sales. It sold 1.47 million shares for $246.2 million in net proceeds, allocating $142.7 million to Bitcoin and $103.5 million…
Bitcoin fell below $83,000 to start the week amid US-Iran war developments but remains up more than 40% for Q3 ahead of key inflation and jobs data. Bitcoin (BTC) is coiling below its 2026 open days before the Q3 candle close as new resistance caps BTC price upside. Key points:
Ether withdrawals are scheduled to return Tuesday and USDt on Wednesday as Bitget restores services following last week’s $388 million hack. Crypto exchange Bitget is resuming withdrawals after a security breach affecting nearly $388 million in assets, as the attacker continues moving stolen crypto through THORChain. Bitget said it resumed Bitcoin (BTC) withdrawals Monday after suspending them following last week’s security incident, with additional assets and networks set to follow over the coming days. The Sept. 24 breach compromised part of Bitget’s hot and warm wallet infrastructure, while its cold wallets remained secure, according to the exchange.
The SFC and AFRC signed a new MoU extending financial reporting, audit and compliance cooperation to licensed virtual asset service providers. Hong Kong regulators have expanded their cooperation on financial reporting and audits to cover licensed crypto firms under a new memorandum of understanding (MoU). On Monday, the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) and the Accounting and Financial Reporting Council (AFRC) said that the agreement extends their regulatory cooperation to financial and compliance reporting by SFC-licensed virtual asset service providers, licensed corporations, registered open-ended fund companies and authorized funds. According to the SFC, the MoU also covers related audit and assurance work and establishes a framework for information sharing, case referrals, mut…
DYORSWAP said it paid more than 200 ETH in compensation, while Upbit operator Dunamu’s GIWA warned that its mainnet had not launched. Scammers stole about $2 million in Ether (ETH) from a bridge for a fake GIWA blockchain that decentralized exchange (DEX) DYORSWAP said it initially mistook for the project’s mainnet. In a reconstruction published Monday, DYORSWAP said the fraudulent bridge received about 767.65 ETH from 1,335 addresses. The scammers drained 766.25 ETH. GIWA, an Ethereum layer-2 network developed by Upbit operator Dunamu, said on Sunday that its mainnet had not launched and warned that purported mainnet connection details circulating online were false.
Bitcoin joined US stock futures in dropping on Monday after US president Donald Trump did not commit to permanently halting strikes on Iran. Bitcoin (BTC) fell to weekly lows on Monday as upside momentum gave way to liquidity hunting on exchange order books. Key points:
Daily inflows slowed as Bitcoin pulled back from above $87,100, while Ether and XRP ETFs also attracted fresh capital during the week. US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) recorded their strongest week of inflows this year, drawing $2.39 billion after adding $134.5 million on Friday. The weekly total was the largest since the week ending Oct. 10, 2025, when net inflows totaled $2.71 billion, according to SoSoValue. It also surpassed the previous 2026 high of $1.92 billion recorded in August. The funds’ year-to-date flows rose to about $926 million on Friday, recovering from a year-to-date deficit that reached roughly $5.55 billion in early July.
Crypto market making is effectively restricted under South Korea’s manipulation rules, but regulators are reconsidering the approach after a JPYC spiked on Upbit this month. South Korea’s Financial Services Commission said it is considering a market-making system for digital assets, after a stablecoin linked to the value of the Japanese yen traded for as much as four times its peg on a major South Korean crypto exchange earlier this month. Crypto exchange Upbit opened trading of JPYC, a yen-backed stablecoin, on Sept. 17, with the market opening at 12 Korean won per JPYC before reaching a high of 37.6 Korean won just an hour later, more than four times its market value. The spike was attributed to limited liquidity on Upbit. “We will also review the need to introduce systems such as mark…
Ethereum’s Vitalik Buterin said PeerDAS marked the start of Ethereum’s transition “from being just a blockchain to being something much more powerful.” Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said Ethereum’s Hegotá upgrade could be the network’s last “normal” fork before development shifts toward technologies that include recursive STARKs, automated formal verification, optimized consensus and quantum-safe cryptography. On Sunday, Buterin said Hegotá, which is planned for 2027, is likely to be the final upgrade whose features and technology would still be recognizable to someone familiar with Ethereum in 2015. He said PeerDAS, which allows nodes to verify data availability by sampling portions of data rather than downloading everything, marked the beginning of Ethereum’s transition “from bei…
The law also restricts crypto companies from offering certain memecoins tied to public officials to California residents and takes effect for tokens issued from Jan. 1, 2027. California Governor Gavin Newsom signed legislation barring state and local public officials from issuing memecoins, as Newsom criticized US President Donald Trump’s crypto ventures. Newsom on Sunday signed Assembly Bill 2409, introduced by Assembly Member Avelino Valencia on Feb. 20, 2026. The law also prohibits digital asset service providers from offering certain memecoins issued by or in partnership with federal, state or local public officials to California residents and applies to tokens issued on or after Jan. 1, 2027. “No official should profit off their office — and we’re putting stronger protections in pla…
The Zano blockchain has been restarted at the block height that came immediately before Hard Fork 6, which introduced Gateway Addresses. Zano has rolled back approximately a month of blockchain history after a vulnerability involving Gateway Addresses allowed unauthorized ZANO and Freedom Dollar to enter circulation, according to its core team. The Zano blockchain has been restarted at block 3,833,000, immediately before Hard Fork 6, which introduced the affected feature. The recovery requires participating nodes, miners, stakers, exchanges and other services to adopt the update, the team said Sunday. The rollback invalidates a month of legitimate transactions along with the unauthorized tokens, meaning transactions made during that period will no longer appear on the recovered chain. It…
THORChain refuses to blacklist addresses linked to the Bitget hack. Vitalik Buterin says Ethereum is evolving from being a mere blockchain, into a world cryptographic computer. Stop me if you’ve heard this before: A centralized exchange with lax security gets hacked by the North Koreans for $387.5 million, and then somehow shifts the blame game onto a decentralized exchange for not blacklisting the addresses. The drama began on September 25 when the Asian focused exchange Bitget revealed $351.6 million in “unauthorized transfers” but it later upgraded the tally to $387.5 million. It said a preliminary investigation had linked the IP addressees to VPN services used by a North Korean hacking group. While that isn’t firm proof, CEO Gracy Chen said its investigators had flagged other similarit…
A rogue OpenAI research agent bypassed blocks on the Australian government health-data portal, accessing non-public files in June. The CEOs of OpenAI and Anthropic have reportedly been summoned to appear at an Australian Senate inquiry into AI, just days after news broke that a rogue OpenAI bot had hacked the country’s health data. The Australian Medicare breach is one of the highest-profile incidents of AI agents accessing external systems outside the US, according to a Sunday Business World report. OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei were asked to appear at the inquiry in Canberra on Thursday, the report said.
The Bitcoin miner has continued to expand its data-center business as well. Bitcoin miner Riot Platforms this week repaid a $200 million credit facility from Coinbase Credit, releasing its collateral. The facility had been secured by a pledge of Riot’s financial assets, including Bitcoin, USDC and cash, which was held in the custody of Coinbase Custody Trust Company. Riot finished paying the remaining principal and interest on Monday, according to a Friday filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
Our ambition should be to “enable 10 million new companies to raise capital,” Strategy’s executive chairman Michael Saylor wrote in an essay. Michael Saylor, co-founder of Strategy, said that an age of digital assets and intelligence needs a “bill of digital rights,” rather than restrictions. An age of AI can increase production, but it needs better money and capital markets to realize its potential, according to an essay that Saylor, executive chairman of world’s largest corporate Bitcoin holder, posted on X Saturday. A useful framework for digital assets should establish five fundamental rights, or freedoms, Saylor wrote.
The 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against prediction market Kalshi, siding with Ohio and Tennessee on regulating sports-event contracts under state laws. Prediction market Kalshi lost on appeal when a court ruled that Ohio and Tennessee can regulate sports-event contracts under their state gambling laws. The 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Kalshi on Friday when a three-judge panel sided unanimously with Ohio and Tennessee, finding that the prediction market failed to demonstrate its sports-event contracts are “swaps” under the jurisdiction of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The ruling followed a similar finding from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals last month, which broke from an April decision by the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals allowing the company…
Peirce, known as “Crypto Mom,” served on the SEC for about eight years, including as director of the Crypto Task Force. SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce has submitted her formal resignation from the US Securities and Exchange Commission, effective Oct. 2. Peirce, also known as “Crypto Mom” amid her advocacy of clear, rules-based regulation of the crypto industry, posted a copy of her resignation letter on her X account Friday. In the letter, she thanked the president for the “honor of her professional lifetime” serving as a commissioner and said she was leaving the SEC under the excellent leadership of Chairman Paul Atkins and Commissioner Mark Uyeda, the two remaining members, who are both Republicans.
