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Zcash plans to carry out its NU7 network upgrade on Nov. 5, which would cut block generation time to 25 seconds from 75 seconds, CoinDesk reported. Sean Bowe, a core Zcash developer, submitted a proposal on Oct. 20 to set the NU7 activation point at block height 3,543,405. Once the upgrade is applied, transaction confirmation speeds would improve by roughly three times. For example, at exchanges that require three block confirmations for ZEC deposits, the waiting time could shrink to about one minute 15 seconds from about four minutes.

Kim Min-seok, leader of South Korea’s Democratic Party, said he would seek a reasonable solution on cryptocurrency taxation, according to Digital Asset. He said views were being gathered on the taxation of digital assets, including cryptocurrencies, and that the National Assembly and government would work toward a reasonable solution through discussions that consider regulatory improvements, the voices of young people, and real-world conditions. It was the first time Kim had publicly stated a position on cryptocurrency taxation since taking office as party leader.

Digital credit-based yield-bearing stablecoin issuer Saturn announced its participation in the IPO of SATS, the dividend-paying preferred shares of Strive (ASST). The allocated shares and investment amount were not disclosed. Strive said on Oct. 20 it completed the SATS IPO, raising $630 million through 7 million shares. The proceeds are set to be used for additional Bitcoin purchases and investments in yield-generating assets.

The hacker behind the April attack on Solana-based DeFi protocol Drift, now Velocity, deposited another 4,600 ETH worth $11.23 million into Tornado Cash on Oct. 21 from a separate long-dormant address, blockchain security firm Salus reported. The wallet transferred funds out for the first time in about 202 days after receiving a total of 24,881.97 ETH from 11 wallets on April 1. At the time, most of the funds entered after USDC moved from Solana to Ethereum was swapped into ETH. Salus said cumulative deposits into Tornado Cash from two hacker wallets it is tracking have reached 30,310 ETH.

An institutional investor appears to have lost 973,000 MORPHO worth $2.3 million, according to on-chain analyst ZachXBT. The stolen funds were deposited into Tornado Cash. In a Telegram post, ZachXBT said one of the two affected addresses, beginning with 0x4943, had also lost about $3.5 million left on a legacy bridge on Oct. 9. In that case, the stolen funds moved from Ethereum to Zcash (ZEC) via Near Intents and were then sent to Ironwood, a shielded pool. ZachXBT added both incidents were tied to EIP-7702 delegated transactions. The 0x4943 address also overlaps in on-chain activity with an address believed to belong to Nima Capital, he said. Nima Capital was previously known to have suffered losses worth tens of millions of dollars in September 2023 after a private key leak.

Hyperliquid Policy Center (HPC) has asked the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to allow futures products tied to AI computing power to be listed. HPC said the computing power market lacks derivatives to manage price swings, leaving market participants unable to hedge against declines. The CFTC is collecting public comments on the matter.

South Korean exchange Upbit announced it will temporarily suspend Luna Classic (LUNC) withdrawals at 11:00 a.m. UTC on Oct. 26.

Japanese yen stablecoin issuer JPYC said it signed an MOU with SBJ Bank, Shinhan Bank’s Japanese unit, and LINE NEXT to pursue a proof of concept for a function that lets users top up digital wallets from bank accounts. JPYC will support technology related to stablecoin issuance and redemption, while LINE NEXT will provide its Unifi digital wallet and Unifi Pay, among other services.

A suspended prison term has been finalized for a former South Korean Ministry of the Interior and Safety official accused of accepting the digital asset PURE as a bribe, according to Digital Asset. South Korea’s Supreme Court Second Division, presided over by Justice Kwon Young-joon, dismissed on Oct. 16 the appeals of former ministry technical secretary Park, who was indicted on charges including bribery, and Lee, the head of PURE issuer UniNetwork, who was indicted on charges including bribery, the outlet reported. As a result, a lower court ruling sentencing Park to one year in prison, suspended for two years, and a 15 million won fine was finalized. Lee’s sentence of eight months in prison, suspended for two years, was also finalized.

Bithumb announced it will temporarily suspend EGLD withdrawals at 11:00 a.m. UTC today to support a MultiversX network upgrade.

Japan is considering the use of stablecoins for sales tax refunds to foreign tourists, CoinPost reported. Tatsunori Ibayashi, Japan’s land, infrastructure, transport and tourism minister, disclosed the plan at a House of Representatives land, infrastructure, transport and tourism committee meeting on Oct. 21. Japan plans to change its duty-free shopping system from Nov. 1 so that tourists first pay consumption tax at duty-free stores and receive a refund when leaving the country. To qualify, tourists must depart within 90 days of purchase and obtain customs confirmation that the goods were taken out of the country. Stablecoins were mentioned as a payment method for the refund process. In March, Japanese duty-free service provider Nihon Menzei and stablecoin issuer JPYC formed a partnership to build a refund system that would immediately send the yen-denominated stablecoin JPYC to a tourist’s crypto wallet once customs verification is completed.

Blockchain security firm SlowMist urged cryptocurrency exchanges, DeFi projects and wallet service providers to review PHP security vulnerabilities and apply official patches promptly once they are released. In a post on X, SlowMist said two critical PHP vulnerabilities were recently identified that could allow external attackers to execute malicious code on servers. The flaws, CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619, each carry a CVSS v4.0 severity score of 9.2, while the affected PHP versions and real-world exploitation conditions have not yet been officially confirmed. An official security update is scheduled for release at 2:00 p.m. UTC today.

Cardano plans to integrate the new Leios consensus technology into its next Dijkstra upgrade, gradually expanding transaction processing capacity by as much as 15 times from current levels, CoinPost reported. The Dijkstra upgrade is expected to roll out between December 2026 and January 2027 or between February and March 2027, according to the report. It is also set to include governance changes and improvements to the convenience of withdrawing staking rewards.

MEXC announced it will halt services in Russia and Belarus to comply with global regulations. The move is seen as tied to the risk of secondary sanctions in the European Economic Area, or EEA. Bitget had previously designated Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan as restricted jurisdictions.

Ulsan Metropolitan Police Agency Commissioner Choi Bohyeon said the investigation into the KOK Coin, or KOK token, multilevel fraud case is ongoing and will continue beyond the previously recognized 404.4 billion won ($292.0 million) in damages, according to Edaily. During a National Assembly audit by the Public Administration and Security Committee on Oct. 21, Democratic Party lawmaker Yang Bu-nam urged a swift and active investigation into the case. Choi responded the probe is continuing and would proceed further in addition to the 404.4 billion won tied to a pre-indictment court-approved asset forfeiture and preservation order. After Yang stressed that the case had left many victims devastated, Choi said he would proceed accordingly. Prosecutors estimate the KOK token case was a multilevel virtual asset fraud scheme that affected 570,707 people in South Korea and overseas and caused total losses of 2.5759 trillion won ($1.86 billion).

Crypto platforms Blockchain.com and Binance.US have each submitted applications to offer prediction market services in the U.S., The Block reported, citing the Financial Times. The move is part of efforts to diversify their businesses and secure new revenue streams as the cryptocurrency market remains in a prolonged slump.

North Korean-linked hacking group SquidSquad appears to have laundered $2.84 million in cryptocurrency stolen from an institution, on-chain analyst ZachXBT said on Telegram. ZachXBT said SquidSquad stole the institution’s funds on BNB Smart Chain on Oct. 8, then deposited 1,111.2 ETH into crypto mixing protocol Tornado Cash on Oct. 20 and withdrew the funds across three addresses. The funds later moved to two addresses linked to North Korean-associated wallets. ZachXBT added the group appears to have used an OTC desk with Chinese roots to avoid a Tether freeze.

The spot CVD chart is an order-book analysis chart for the BTC/USDT spot trading pair. The upper section shows the volume heatmap, while the lower section represents cumulative volume delta, or CVD. - The volume heatmap in the upper section tracks trading volume at each price level. The background color becomes brighter when the price stays in a specific range for an extended period or moves sharply. Brighter zones may act as support or resistance levels. - The cumulative volume delta indicator in the lower section reflects buy and sell orders by order size. As buy orders increase, the line for the corresponding color rises. The yellow line tracks orders between $100 and $1,000, while the brown line reflects large orders between $1 million and $10 million.

The following are the 24-hour long/short ratios for BTC perpetual futures on the world’s three largest crypto futures exchanges by open interest: Overall: 51.99% long, 48.01% short - Binance: 50.98% long, 49.02% short - OKX: 50.43% long, 49.57% short - Bybit: 52% long, 48% short

Nasdaq-listed BNB Standard Corporation (BNC) said it will ring the opening bell at Nasdaq in New York’s Times Square at 9:30 a.m. on Oct. 26. The company was previously named CEA Industries, a Nasdaq-listed firm focused on BNB investments.

South Korean crypto exchange Upbit announced a temporary suspension of deposits and withdrawals for GRAM due to wallet maintenance.

South Korea’s People Power Party said it will try to reach an agreement with the ruling Democratic Party on taxation of virtual assets, according to Digital Asset. Speaking to reporters after a press conference at the National Assembly Communication Hall in Yeouido, Seoul on Oct. 21, Park Soo-young, deputy head of policy at the People Power Party, said the party would naturally seek consultations between the rival parties’ floor-level policy officials on the tax issue, but it was difficult to predict the outcome. Park said that was because the Democratic Party had not yet unified its position as party policy. No agreement has been reached with the Democratic Party on digital asset taxation, the report said. Park added that although a bill to delay digital asset taxation had also been proposed within the Democratic Party, it had not become official party policy, making it unclear what conclusion lawmakers would reach during the bill review process in November.

Bitcoin treasury company Strive has raised $630 million through a preferred stock offering, The Block reported. Strive completed an IPO of 7 million SATS preferred shares carrying a 15% dividend rate, with the deal size increased from the original plan. The company had previously said it could use the proceeds to buy additional BTC and invest in yield-generating assets.

Solana’s transaction failure rate fell from 44.5% to 30.6% alongside a reduction in target slot time, Blockworks Research analyst Sam Schubert said in an analysis posted on X. According to Blockworks Research data comparing periods when Solana’s target slot time was 400 milliseconds and 200 milliseconds, the share of failed transactions among those included in blocks, excluding validator consensus vote transactions, declined from 44.5% to 30.6%. The share of failed transactions in total compute usage, excluding vote transactions, also dropped from 29.8% to 20.9%. Schubert said this meant a larger share of compute resources was being used for transactions that actually succeeded. Blockworks Research added it could not conclude the shorter slot time was the cause of the lower failure rate.

Dragonfly Capital Managing Partner Haseeb Qureshi pushed back on allegations that Polymarket CEO Shane Coplan misused company funds, saying on X that reports claiming Coplan was caught using company money improperly seriously distorted the facts. Qureshi said Coplan ran the company without taking a salary at the time and disclosed all expenses. Air travel was entirely for business purposes, Qureshi said, adding that on an annualized basis, the total spending was roughly equal to a software engineer's salary. Qureshi also said the bookkeeping cleanup and reimbursement process was initiated voluntarily by Coplan, not after anyone caught the issue. After fully repaying the company, Coplan began receiving a normal salary, Qureshi said, adding the matter was an accounting issue rather than one of integrity and that, as an investor, Qureshi fully trusts Coplan. Earlier, Bloomberg reported Coplan spent company funds on personal expenses and that Founders Fund identified the issue during its 2025 investment review process and demanded repayment.