News linked to both this project and an event.
Odaily reports: Block, the fintech company under Jack Dorsey, has announced it will push its crypto and payment platform Cash App to transform into a comprehensive digital bank, aiming to boost user engagement and customer retention through products including stock, ETF, and Bitcoin trading, short-term loans, high-yield savings, and custom debit cards. Currently, Cash App has 9.4 million users who use it as their primary banking tool, up 17% year-over-year. However, it still faces stagnant user growth and regulatory pressure, as some users primarily use Cash App for occasional transfers rather than everyday banking, investing, and spending services. (Bloomberg)
Odaily reports: According to Bitcoin News monitoring, on-chain analysis shows that attackers appear to have exploited the Ethereum EIP-7702 mechanism to obtain signature authorization, installing malicious code without directly accessing the private keys of Binance-associated wallets. The attackers then called a function named "sweep" to transfer ETH and dozens of tokens into wallets under their control; the same delegation permission was reportedly also used to transfer $780 million USDC out of another Binance hot wallet. The attackers' transaction relayer received funding through Tornado Cash, and nearly 195,460 ETH was subsequently transferred to a newly created wallet. How the attackers obtained the relevant authorization remains unclear. Binance stated that user funds are safe and that an investigation is currently underway.
Circle has submitted a comment letter to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission regarding proposed crypto asset regulation rules, supporting the promotion of innovation under clear rules while maintaining transparency, investor protection, market integrity, liquidity, and efficiency. Circle recommends that the relevant rules be aligned with the GENIUS Act and requests clarification that payment stablecoins compliant with the Act may be used for on-chain capital formation and settlement, and that they constitute "cash" under proposed Rule 302(b), subject to the corresponding USD valuation, accounting, and customer reserve treatment. Circle also recommends reducing the broker-dealer haircut for payment stablecoins compliant with the GENIUS Act from 2% to zero, and requests that the SEC clarify that technical services provided after network operation do not constitute necessary administrative functions, while establishing a safe harbor rule for technology roadmaps.
Odaily reports: Crypto wallet Phantom began rolling out Kalshi prediction market services to U.S. users on October 23, allowing users to trade event contracts directly within the app, with availability set to gradually expand over the coming weeks. Users must complete Kalshi's KYC verification and can fund trades through a Phantom Cash account using CASH, a U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin. Due to lawsuits in various states, Phantom will temporarily restrict sports, election, political, and certain other category markets in some states.Kevin Jacobs, Phantom's general counsel, said the company believes the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has clear jurisdiction over such products and will comply with state restrictions during the litigation. (The Block)
According to Trendfollowing Research, a Bank of America research report dated October 13, 2026 states that the October global fund manager survey shows cash levels at 3.9%, with 37% of investors indicating they would shift from equities to bonds once the 10-year US Treasury yield reaches 6.0%. The most crowded trades are long global semiconductors (45%) and short US Treasuries (27%). Meanwhile, 39% of respondents identify AI hyperscaler capital expenditures as the most likely source of credit events, and 76% expect the Federal Reserve to hold rates steady on October 28. Bank of America concludes that while the market is bullish, positioning is crowded, with bond yields and AI capital expenditures posing the greatest risks. For allocation strategy, they recommend contrarian trades: going long on bonds, REITs, and the consumer sector, while shorting equities, technology, banking, and emerging markets.
According to the BIS Innovation Hub, Project Aurum Phase 2 has been officially released. Built upon the existing Aurum codebase, this project develops a privacy-preserving digital cash prototype aimed at helping central banks and policymakers better understand how Privacy-Enhancing Technologies (PETs) can address the dilemma between privacy protection and regulatory compliance in digital cash systems. The prototype adheres to "Privacy by Design" and "Privacy by Default" principles, striking a balance between complete anonymity and full transparency while providing customizable features to meet compliance and operational requirements. The project emphasizes that privacy protection must be embedded directly into the digital cash architecture through technical measures, rather than relying solely on institutional safeguards, thereby minimizing the unnecessary exposure of personal and transaction data and preserving system integrity. The report also indicates that relevant features can be flexibly adjusted according to varying policy orientations and risk appetites, offering a reference for central banks when formulating policies in the digital payments sector. Concurrently, BIS recommends that central banks further investigate the application potential of PETs across broader scenarios.
Odaily News: According to Bitcoin News monitoring, the attacker behind the Ledger supply chain theft has moved nearly 3,000 ETH through Tornado Cash in three separate transactions, and transferred the funds into the Zcash privacy pool before converting them to USDC. Investigator @YFarmX stated that despite the use of privacy tools, they have traced 108 transactions completed through Zcash by exact value matching. An estimated $2.85 million in stolen USDC is still held in 3 wallets, and Circle may be able to freeze the related funds. Meanwhile, Tether is reported to have frozen $10 million in stolen USDT; wallets associated with the attacker still hold approximately $38.6 million in ETH and $16.9 million in BTC.
Odaily report: New financial platform Bybit today announced the official launch of Stocks, allowing eligible users to trade over 1,000 U.S.-listed stocks and ETFs through Bybit, covering a wide range of popular U.S. equities and ETF tickers.Following the launch of Stocks, Bybit users who have completed KYC verification and are located in permitted regions can directly buy and sell supported U.S. stocks and ETFs using USDC. Unlike price derivatives or synthetic instruments, Stocks gives Bybit users access to the economic rights of a broader range of securities.Key features currently available on Stocks include:- Over 1,000 U.S. stocks and ETFs, with fractional share trading supported for eligible securities- Trading with USDC, funded directly from your Bybit account- Corporate action support, including cash dividends, stock dividends, and stock splits- 24/5 trading, covering U.S. pre-market, regular, and after-hours sessions (subject to product availability)- Zero commission on eligible stock tradesEligible users holding positions can receive the corresponding economic rights. Cash dividends will be converted from USD to USDC and deposited into the Unified Trading Account (UTA), while stock dividends will be directly reflected in users' holdings. Voting rights are planned for a later phase.Orders are routed through Bybit's regulated brokerage infrastructure and executed by U.S. self-clearing broker Alpaca, with underlying securities custodied by Alpaca. In addition to crypto spot and derivatives trading, Bybit also connects to traditional market opportunities through the MT5 platform, tokenized stocks, and TradFi perpetual contracts, and the launch of Bybit Stocks further completes Bybit's multi-asset platform layout.Bybit Stocks is offered by Infra Capital Limited (introducing broker), which is regulated by the Mauritius Financial Services Commission (GB23202169). Clearing and settlement services for U.S. securities are provided by Alpaca Securities LLC (FINRA/SIPC member). Specific terms and conditions for this product are available on the official website. Investment products carry the risk of principal loss, and users should read the Risk Disclosure Statement before investing.
According to Onchain Lens monitoring, the suspected hacker behind the reported $90 million Ledger reseller incident has deposited 430.2 ETH, worth $1.07 million, into Tornado Cash through 4 wallets. After Tether froze the related funds, the hacker swapped USDT for USDD through SUN.io and USDD's PSM, with some funds also flowing into Binance hot wallets.The hacker's wallet tracked by Arkham currently holds a total of $70.6 million in assets, including 11,406 ETH worth $28.35 million; 213.371 BTC worth $17.65 million; 13.646 million USDD worth $13.65 million; and 10.909 million USDT worth $10.91 million. Onchain Lens is calling on Binance to investigate these transfers and freeze accounts associated with the stolen funds as soon as possible.
Odaily News: Roman Storm posted on X platform stating that the U.S. Treasury Department recently acknowledged in a document that there were problems with previous rules targeting mixers, and noted that the policy may have a "chilling effect" on legitimate activities. Storm stated that although the relevant department of the U.S. Treasury Department now believes the policy has issues, the U.S. Department of Justice in his case still insists that even legitimate transactions conducted through Tornado Cash constitute illegal acts because they could be used for money laundering, sanctions evasion, and other criminal purposes. Storm said that the non-criminal division of the U.S. government believes the policy is improper, while the criminal justice division believes all related transactions constitute crimes; he has been detained and prosecuted for over 1,139 days, and claims his case stems from developing open-source code. Storm also stated that the Southern District of New York (SDNY) federal court submitted a new document today, and the U.S. Department of Justice is still pushing for his conviction.
Odaily News — According to monitoring by the Drift Foundation, the Drift Foundation has released an update on fund recovery progress related to the April 1 security incident: approximately $295 million in user assets were stolen. The foundation has engaged Mandiant, zeroShadow, and SEAL 911 to conduct the investigation and trace the funds, with Mandiant identifying the attacker as the North Korean threat group UNC6862.The stolen funds were subsequently bridged to Ethereum, with approximately 130,300 ETH distributed across 4 wallets. Three of these wallets have seen no transfers to date, collectively holding 107,200 ETH; the other wallet transferred approximately 23,100 ETH to Tornado Cash on July 23.Currently, approximately $9.2 million in stolen funds has been frozen. The relevant funds had previously been transferred through Tornado Cash in August, and unfreezing and return still require cooperation with legal procedures. The Drift Foundation will transfer all assets recovered through freezing, bounties, or law enforcement channels into the DFX recovery pool, and is evaluating the subsequent path of the DRIFT token within the broader ecosystem. In addition, the foundation has partnered with Bybit to launch a public bounty program, offering a 10% bounty on successfully recovered funds.
The U.S. CFTC filed a civil lawsuit against Cash FX Group and related individuals, alleging that it used AI and high-return promises to package forex investments, which were actually a Ponzi scheme involving over $950 million.
Odaily News: The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has filed a lawsuit against Cash FX Group S.A. and its CEO Huascar Jose Lopez Castillo, The Conversion Pros Inc. and its CEO Ronald Pope, and Justin Halladay, alleging that the defendants operated a multi-level marketing Ponzi scheme, raising over $950 million from the public, including in the United States, purportedly for retail forex contract trading.The CFTC stated that the defendants falsely claimed funds were traded by professional traders, proprietary algorithms, and AI, and promised returns of up to 15% per week; in reality, Cash FX conducted only minimal forex trading, and nearly all participant funds were misappropriated, with funds from new participants used to pay fictitious trading profits to other participants, while millions of dollars were paid to the defendants. The CFTC also stated that Cash FX provided participants with false account statements to maintain the illusion of high trading returns, and participants lost at least $406 million. The CFTC is seeking restitution, disgorgement of ill-gotten gains, civil monetary penalties, trading and registration bans, and permanent injunctions against the defendants.
derivatives exchange CME Group has announced that, pending regulatory approval, it will launch Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Uniswap futures on October 19. The standard BCH contract corresponds to 250 BCH, while the micro contract corresponds to 25 BCH.Following the announcement, BCH briefly surged 30%, breaking above $340 and briefly touching $358, with weekly gains at one point exceeding 50%. Bitcoin SV (BSV) also rose approximately 20% in tandem, approaching its yearly high of $21; Bitcoin fell back to around $84,000 on Wednesday.Digital asset management firm Grayscale has filed to convert its Bitcoin Cash Trust into a spot ETF listed on NYSE Arca. (Decrypt)
The Chicago Mercantile Exchange Group announced that, after receiving regulatory approval, it will launch BCH and UNI futures on October 19. Market participants can choose to trade larger contracts and smaller contracts: BCH Futures (250 BCH) and Micro Bitcoin Cash Futures (25 BCH); UNI Futures (10,000 UNI) and Micro Uniswap Futures (1,000 UNI).
The Zcash Foundation issued a statement indicating it was previously unaware of the details surrounding "ZRC-20" and the CASH token, clarifying that the project is a third-party private initiative and not an official Zcash token standard or protocol feature, and reminded users to conduct thorough due diligence before interacting with any tokens.
Block CEO Jack Dorsey has expressed support for review, independent evaluation, and planning of frontier AI, but opposes governments and leading AI companies negotiating industry-wide development restrictions.He advocates for an open-release approach that allows outside parties to reproduce results, identify problems, and develop alternatives, and supports providing models, computing power, and public infrastructure to independent researchers and safety researchers.Block is developing open-source AI tools and provides Bitcoin-related services across products including Square and Cash App. The company has also launched the open-source AI agent goose, and is developing Bitcoin mining hardware Proto and hardware wallet Bitkey. (Bitcoin.com News)
Bitcoin News posted on X platform stating that Coin Center says the latest revised BRCA text removes the provision that provided explicit criminal liability protection for developers who do not control user funds under 18 U.S.C. § 1960. The revised text would still protect developers who do not control user funds from being deemed money transmitters under the Bank Secrecy Act and FinCEN regulations, thereby significantly raising the difficulty of prosecuting developers solely for failing to obtain a money transmitter license or register with the federal government. However, the text cannot prevent prosecutors from arguing that developers knowingly transmitted funds derived from criminal activity, a theory that has become the core basis in the criminal cases against Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm and Samourai Wallet developers. Coin Center believes that this compromise represents substantive progress on the regulatory front, but developers still face broader money transmission criminal prosecution theories from the U.S. Department of Justice; if the CLARITY Act passes with the revised BRCA, the related disputes will mainly shift to the courts.
Odaily News: The sandwich attack bot operated by JaredfromSubway.eth has extracted a cumulative total of 117,007 ETH since March 2023, worth approximately $295 million at current prices. In June 2026, an anonymous attacker deployed 66 counterfeit token contracts, exploiting the bot's automated trading logic to steal at least $7.5 million in ETH and stablecoins, and funneled the funds into Tornado Cash. The stolen assets have not yet been recovered.Sandwich attacks are a form of Maximal Extractable Value (MEV): the bot monitors large transactions in Ethereum's public mempool, buys ahead of the target transaction, and sells after the transaction pushes the price up, capturing profits from the spread. The bot's primary contract had received a cumulative total of 117,007 ETH as of August 28.MEV-Boost block construction is centralized among a small group of participants, with relay.ultrasound.money, Titan Relay, and bloXroute regulated relays collectively forwarding approximately 85% to 88% of related blocks within a 24-hour window; Titan's builder independently assembled 50.3% of the blocks. Monthly sandwich attack extraction amounts have declined from approximately $10 million in late 2024 to roughly $2.5 million in October 2025. (Bitcoin.com News)
Odaily News: After Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix announced shareholder return plans aimed at allocating more than 50% of free cash flow (FCF) to shareholder returns, SanDisk and Micron have proposed returning 100% of "excess cash" to shareholders, raising questions about the relatively low level of shareholder returns among South Korean semiconductor companies. However, industry and financial institutions in South Korea point out that the cash metrics underlying the two types of policies are not defined the same way, making it unfair to directly compare the "50%" and "100%" ratios. Industry insiders believe that the FCF-based return policies of Korean companies actually offer greater certainty in terms of amount forecasting, implementation standards, and transparency.It is understood that FCF typically refers to the cash remaining after deducting capital expenditures (CAPEX) and other investment outlays from cash generated by operating activities, and can be objectively calculated using data from cash flow statements. Samsung Electronics previously announced that 50% of its cumulative FCF from 2024 to 2026 would be allocated to shareholder returns; SK Hynix also plans to allocate more than 50% of cumulative FCF to shareholder returns over the 2025–2027 period. (Yonhap)