BTC is currently trading around $26,700 and ETH around $1,500. Notable gainers in the last 24 hours are FXS, CRO, and KAS. The global crypto market cap is $1.08T, down 1.3% over the last day. DeFi Total Value Locked is ~$36b and BTC dominance is around 51%.
Equity markets are mixed after the US CPI increased slightly more than expected. Specifically, consumer prices in September increased 3.7% over the last year, outpacing the +3.6% consensus, while core prices increased 4.1%, matching expectations. Additionally, yesterday’s minutes from the FOMC’s September meeting showed that the majority of participants believed that one more rate increase is likely appropriate, and that rates will need to stay elevated until inflation is headed back to the Fed’s 2% target.
Notable news includes: a second Chinese court ruled that crypto lending is outside the protection of the country’s legal system; the Chinese city of Shenzhen launched a digital yuan industrial park; JP Morgan successfully completed a blockchain-based cross-border payments pilot project with First Abu Dhabi Bank; WisdomTree expanded its blockchain-enabled Prime app to 11 additional US states; a Standard Chartered report said ETH could hit $8,000 by year-end 2026 if gaming and tokenization show proof-of-concept for real-world industries moving onchain; a JP Morgan report predicted that the Bitcoin hash rate will fall by 20% on the next halving; ex-Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison stated that SBF paid a $150m bribe to Chinese government officials to access $1b in frozen funds in the country; an ex-FTX engineer stated that Alameda lost $200m to phishing attacks due to poor security practices; analytics firm Elliptic found that some stolen FTX funds appear to be linked to Russian cybercriminal groups; a bankruptcy court approved a $175m settlement between FTX and Genesis Global Trading; real estate-backed stablecoin USDR lost its USD peg after redemptions drained liquid assets from its treasury; Bitfinex launched zero fee taker orders on its P2P platform in Argentina, Colombia and Venezuela; Hata received in-principle approval to launch the fifth regulated digital asset exchange in Malaysia; leading liquid staking protocol Lido saw 20 validators run by a node operator get slashed; the DAO for fixed income DeFi project Barnbridge voted to comply with potential SEC demands and pay any necessary fines; cross-chain communications platform Axelar proposed modifying its tokenomics; Stars Arena, the Avalance-based friend.tech fork that was hacked last week, recovered 90% of the lost funds and paid a 10% bounty; and, DeFi protocol Platypus lost $2.2m in a flash loan exploit.
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Authors:
Matt Kunke, Research Analyst | Twitter, Telegram, LinkedIn
Brian Rudick, Senior Strategist | Twitter, Telegram, LinkedIn
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