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Anthropic’s AI model Claude identified in 30 minutes the origin of a cryptographic random seed that the U.S. National Security Agency sent to NIST in the 1990s and that had long faced suspicions of a hidden backdoor. Bitcoin is unrelated to the issue because it uses its own curve, secp256k1, rather than the NIST curve in question, CoinDesk reported, citing experts. The outlet added that quantum-computing decryption risks are a separate issue and that the clarification does not require changes to existing ECDSA cryptographic systems.

BTC continues to show stronger bid-side depth in Binance’s perpetual futures market, according to Liquid247.xyz. Buy orders in the Binance BTC perpetual futures order book totaled about $39.17 million, compared with about $37.48 million in sell orders, leaving the bid side roughly $1.69 million thicker. Spot markets also showed a buying bias, though overall order-book liquidity remained minimal compared with the futures market.

Stablecoin market capitalization held around $302.9 billion during the 2026 crypto downturn, while actual payment volume surged 45% year over year to $482 billion. According to Allium data, third-quarter payment volume reached a record $72 billion, with business payments accounting for 64% of the total. Usage of stablecoin payment cards for small purchases under $50 increased 10-fold, driving deeper adoption in the real economy. Experts said regulators’ bans on interest payments, including under the U.S. GENIUS Act and EU rules, remain a bottleneck limiting overall supply growth despite broader payment utility. JPMorgan analyzed that market expansion through 2028 would be constrained without yield incentives tied to RWA-linked interest income.

OKX founder and CEO Star Xu said in a podcast interview that Bitcoin and the crypto industry have repeatedly overcome crises, proving their structural resilience. Xu cited Bitcoin’s early hard forks and hash-power attacks, the collapse of Mt. Gox, the block-size scaling dispute, and the FTX bankruptcy as representative moments when the industry came close to collapse. He said each cleanup took months or more than a year, but after every downturn and resolution, the ecosystem reemerged as a much larger, safer, and more sophisticated financial infrastructure.

U.S. spot Ethereum ETFs recorded a net outflow of $69.7 million on Oct. 16, marking a third straight day of net withdrawals, according to Farside Investors. - BlackRock ETHA: -$69.7 million

U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded a net outflow of $82.4 million on Oct. 16, reversing from net inflows, according to Farside Investors. - BlackRock IBIT: -$71.8 million - Fidelity FBTC: -$10.6 million

Bitdeer said it sold all 394.2 BTC it mined this week. The company reduced its Bitcoin holdings to zero on Feb. 20 and has since been converting all newly mined BTC into cash.

According to Coinpay data, the median buy price for USDT on Argentina’s Binance P2P platform rose to 1,612.6 pesos. Over the same period, the Central Bank of Argentina’s official dollar exchange rate stood at 1,512.81 pesos, widening the premium from 5.66% on Oct. 11 to 6.6%, the highest level in about two months.

Binance founder Changpeng Zhao shared data showing BNB Chain remains the clear leader in the real-world asset sector. BNB Chain’s tokenized stock market capitalization stands at about $1.2 billion, giving it a 32.4% share and the top spot overall. Zhao added that assets under management for Binance bStocks surpassed $1 billion four months after launch, while conversion trading volume with the underlying shares exceeded $6 billion. The number of addresses holding RWAs, including tokenized stocks, Treasuries, and commodities, has also topped 2 million.

An anonymous whale withdrew 2.455 million ONDO worth $1.144 million from Binance about 12 hours ago, according to ai_9684xtpa. The whale also holds Uniswap's UNI and Litecoin's LTC, with 1.014 million UNI worth $8.91 million and 12,400 LTC worth $841,000.

Seventy-five percent of U.S. cryptocurrency holders want to access digital asset services through the banks they already use, according to a Sentora survey of 10,000 U.S. crypto holders in 2026. Sentora said roughly three-quarters of respondents preferred getting digital asset services through their existing banks, adding that balances still held on crypto exchanges could serve as an indicator of how fully banks are providing related services.

Shield Swap announced a partnership with crypto market maker Flowdesk to provide institutional-grade liquidity and strengthen private trading features. Under the partnership, professional traders will be able to execute large trades in major trading pairs without disclosing identity, asset holdings, or trading strategies.

The share of recently transferred BTC held for less than one year has fallen to 4.4%, down about 36 percentage points from 40.4% on June 17, CryptoQuant contributor IT Tech said. The BTC in question was largely bought near or after Bitcoin’s 2025 peak, with the share of exchange inflows dropping sharply from 40.4% in June to 30.9% in July, 9.8% in August, and 3.7% in September. As of Oct. 15, the figure stood at 4.4%, or 9,100 BTC. IT Tech said the trend suggests selling pressure from buyers who entered near the peak has eased significantly. Still, the analyst added a drop in selling pressure alone is not enough to support price gains, and a broader uptrend would require fresh buying demand that has not yet clearly emerged.

Mysten Labs, the developer of Sui, announced the creation of an artificial intelligence division to develop trust solutions and related infrastructure for AI agents. Current CEO Evan Cheng will move into the chief technology officer role to lead the AI business, while President Kevin Boon will become the new CEO. The company plans to develop products based on Sui and Walrus that control agent behavior and support the safe execution of tasks without real-time human intervention. Mysten Labs had earlier announced plans to work with Google Cloud on a verification and arbitration system, or VAA, for enterprise AI agent activity. The system is designed to help resolve disputes that arise when AI agents collaborate across organizations through records that are difficult to alter or forge.

South Korea’s Ministry of Economy and Finance will hold a closed-door meeting with cryptocurrency exchange executives on tax policy at 1:00 a.m. UTC on Oct. 19, Digital Asset reported. According to the outlet, First Vice Minister Kwon Dae-young and other government officials are expected to attend, alongside exchange representatives and the Digital Asset eXchange Alliance (DAXA). Separately, at the National Assembly, the opposition has stepped up pressure for a delay as it began proposing a bill to scrap the tax and continued its offensive during the parliamentary audit.

CoinMarketCap’s Altcoin Season Index came in at 61, up four points from yesterday. The index is calculated by comparing Bitcoin’s price performance with that of the top 100 coins by market capitalization, excluding stablecoins and wrapped coins. A reading indicates altcoin season when 75% of the top 100 coins have outperformed Bitcoin over the past 90 days, while the opposite is considered Bitcoin season. The closer the index is to 100, the stronger the signal for altcoin season.

Spot CVD is an order-book analysis chart for the BTC/USDT spot trading pair. The upper panel shows a volume heatmap, while the lower panel represents cumulative volume delta, or CVD. - The upper volume heatmap tracks trading volume at each price level, and the background becomes brighter when the price stays in a specific range for an extended period or makes a large move. Brighter zones may act as support or resistance. - The lower CVD indicator shows buy and sell orders by capital size, with each color-coded line rising as buy orders increase for that segment. The yellow line reflects orders between $100 and $1,000, while the brown line tracks large orders between $1 million and $10 million, among other categories.

CoinMarketCap’s in-house crypto fear and greed index came in at 50, down one point from yesterday, and remained in neutral territory. A reading closer to zero signals extreme fear in the market, while one closer to 100 indicates extreme optimism. The index is calculated using price moves among the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, market volatility, derivatives-market indicators such as the put/call ratio, the stablecoin supply ratio, and CoinMarketCap’s own search data.

Decentralized perpetual futures exchange Deepsigma has launched a real-time paper trading platform covering 77 traditional financial markets, including U.S. stocks, stock indices, commodities and Treasury yields, Bitcoin News reported. Built on the Cypherium blockchain, the platform lets users simulate long and short positions based on price moves across various assets. Supported markets include the S&P 500, Dow Jones, Nasdaq Composite, Russell 2000 and the VIX, as well as crude oil, gold, silver, natural gas and copper.

Sui-based Bitcoin-collateralized lending primitive Hashi said its cumulative total value committed has surpassed $500 million. Hashi supports the use of Bitcoin in DeFi while keeping the asset on its native blockchain and aims to lower entry barriers that have limited institutional investors’ participation in DeFi.

Crypto industry super PAC Fairshake and affiliated groups have spent more than $52.6 million on Ohio’s Senate race, according to filings with the U.S. Federal Election Commission. As of Oct. 15, Defend American Jobs, a Fairshake-affiliated group, had spent about $46.66 million, the filings show. That total included $15,600 for producing campaign materials opposing Brown that were disclosed on Oct. 13.

Liquidity restaking protocol Ether.fi (ETHFI) said layer-two network Blast is shutting down and advised weETH holders to withdraw assets by Oct. 26. According to Ether.fi, Blast decided to end operations as the chain’s operating costs exceeded revenue generated on the L2 and no economically sustainable path was visible. As part of the shutdown process, withdrawals of Blast’s Lido assets will be handled first and are expected to take about one week. During that period, withdrawals will be temporarily suspended. Once that process is complete, withdrawals will resume with the delay reduced to 24 hours. Asset withdrawals will still be possible after Oct. 26, but users will need to access Blast’s bridge contract on Ethereum L1 directly.

The three major U.S. stock indices closed lower today. - S&P 500: -1.09% - Nasdaq: -2.14% - Dow Jones: -0.34%

Broadcom, Verizon and UnitedHealth have opposed plans to tokenize their shares after the U.S. SEC announced rules on tokenized stock trading last month, The Wall Street Journal reported. AMC Entertainment CEO Adam Aron had earlier also reiterated his opposition to Robinhood’s tokenization of AMC shares and said he would not back down, according to the report.

TD Cowen raised its price target on Bitcoin accumulation company Strive (ASST) to $56 from $44, while maintaining its Buy rating.