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Aave founder Stani Kulechov expressed disappointment with regulatory discussions by the European Central Bank and the European Banking Authority related to MiCA, saying proposals to require suitability reviews for DeFi users and apply certification rules to DeFi lending protocols are concerning. Kulechov said such measures could create a more closed financial ecosystem and reduce access to open financial networks.

Cross-chain decentralized exchange THORChain (RUNE) announced the official launch of its ZEC pool. With the network’s node rotation process now complete, all nodes have begun monitoring the ZEC blockchain, enabling permissionless trading for ZEC. The pool’s liquidity remains low for now, however, and the project said early trading requires caution even as liquidity is expected to increase over time.

BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes said at Cointelegraph’s Seoul Connect event that crypto prices could rise if the U.S. expands its money supply to support the artificial intelligence industry and finance government debt. Hayes added that demand for scarce assets could also increase if China shifts from limited tightening to large-scale monetary stimulus, and said he is watching pressure in French financial markets, including credit default swaps linked to BNP Paribas and spreads on French government bonds.

South Korean exchange Bithumb announced the temporary suspension of STRK deposits and withdrawals at 10:00 a.m. UTC on Oct. 4 to support the Starknet network upgrade.

South African financial institution Absa Bank has launched Africa’s first institutional-grade cryptocurrency custody service, Crypto Briefing reported.

Crypto custody firm Copper has started offering Hyperliquid (HYPE) perpetual futures trading to institutional investors, The Block reported. The service lets clients trade Hyperliquid perpetual futures through Copper while keeping assets secured in Copper’s non-custodial MPC infrastructure.

Forward Industries, the largest corporate accumulator of Solana, said it bought an additional 949,000 SOL over the past quarter, raising its total holdings to 8.5 million SOL. The amount is equal to about 1.4% of SOL’s circulating supply.

A suspected Aave team-linked address sold 50,000 AAVE on-chain over the past week, worth a total of $8 million, AmberCN said. The address currently holds 30,000 AAVE, valued at $5.5 million.

Citi raised its target price on Strategy (MSTR) to $240 from $136 and maintained a Buy rating after increasing its 12-month Bitcoin price forecast by 39% to $113,400, Walter Bloomberg reported. Citi estimated about 34 percentage points of the target-price increase would come from Bitcoin’s price gains, while an additional 16 percentage points would be driven by an expansion in mNAV, or market value relative to net asset value. Citi also raised its Bitcoin Yield Multiple for Strategy to 4.0x from 2.5x and, based on that change, assumed an mNAV of 1.24x.

Software company Utexo plans to issue USDT on the Bitcoin network this month, CoinDesk reported. Utexo has secured a commercial license for Bitcoin-based USDT issuance and plans to provide APIs, SDKs and cloud infrastructure to exchanges, wallets and payment service providers. The company had previously entered into a partnership with Tether and said it would lead USDT issuance and distribution on the Bitcoin network.

Polygon has launched a stablecoin-based euro-dollar exchange pool that is not tied to traditional bank foreign-exchange market hours. Monerium, Frax and Capa launched the EURe/frxUSD trading pair on Uniswap V3, enabling direct swaps between regulated euro liquidity and dollar-denominated stablecoin liquidity in Polygon-based applications.

Aave V4 topped $1 billion in deposits for the first time in September, while lending volume grew to about $310 million. Aave also expanded into an institutional market built around stablecoins and a market for tokenized stocks, and deployed its protocol on Circle’s ARC and Base.

Aptos deployed a new validator hotfix on its testnet. The “Aptos Node V1.49.2 Hotfix,” released on Oct. 1, is a private hotfix, and Aptos has not disclosed the source code. Instead, it instructed node operators to use the attached binary or Docker image.

Optimism (OP) has unveiled a major update to its Rust-based fault proof system, focused on improving consistency so data derivation and proof execution produce the same results as other components of the OP Stack.

Hyperliquid is expected to receive its first AQAv2 reserve yield distribution, according to Hyperliquid Hub. About 14.5 million USDC generated from USDC reserves could flow into the assistance fund and be used for additional HYPE buybacks.

The European Central Bank has outlined three ways to use central bank money on blockchain-based networks, The Block reported. The options are direct issuance by the central bank, a bridge linking existing systems, and a model using private intermediaries. The proposals are aimed at enabling tokenized securities, deposits and stablecoins traded on blockchain networks to be settled in central bank money.

SMBC Nikko Securities said it will develop regulatory-compliant DeFi infrastructure for Japanese investors with Nethermind, an Ethereum core developer. Uniswap Labs, Base and the Nyx Foundation will also take part. The group plans to build a "DeFi Gateway" consisting of a liquidity provision protocol and proprietary liquidity pools. Its main tasks include developing AI-based agent vaults and interfaces, applying AML/CFT and investor protection features through Uniswap v4 hooks, and creating liquidity provision strategies for digital assets such as stablecoins and real-world assets, or RWA. The project is targeted for completion by mid-2027.

South Korean exchange Bithumb announced it will end trading support for DAR Open Network (D) and Hooked Protocol (HOOK) at 6:00 a.m. UTC on Nov. 2. The exchange said the foundations’ explanatory materials did not sufficiently resolve the reasons for the investment warning designation, and after a comprehensive review of the projects’ disclosures, utility and business performance, it decided they no longer met its standards for maintaining trading support.

South Korea’s five largest won-based exchanges are now reconciling actual crypto holdings against internal ledger balances at intervals of under five minutes, Financial News reported on Oct. 2, citing data submitted by South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service to the office of Democratic Party lawmaker Kang Jun-hyun. At the time of Bithumb’s mistaken Bitcoin payout incident in February, three of the five exchanges were conducting reconciliations only once a day, but the system was strengthened after South Korean financial authorities ordered the establishment of an always-on balance reconciliation framework.

Crypto trader Killa said on X that BTC is showing a clear trend reversal, while the market still appears skeptical of the rally despite those signals. Killa said any price pullback should be bought quickly and aggressively. Killa added that during the 2023 bull market, breaks below major lows were capped at as much as 8%, with some limited to 4% to 5% before the uptrend resumed. Using $82,500 as the current key low, Killa said further downside may also remain limited, while adding that leverage should be kept low and risk should be managed.

South Korea’s National Tax Service is accelerating the buildout of a transaction-tracking network ahead of virtual asset taxation next year, Seoul Economy reported in an exclusive. According to the report, citing financial industry sources on Oct. 2, the National Tax Service plans to equip its integrated virtual asset analysis system, which is being built by the end of this year, with a function that can automatically trace transactions across more than 100 blockchains. The agency also plans to track mixing transactions designed to obscure fund flows by blending multiple users’ cryptocurrencies. In addition, it plans to add features that can reverse-analyze mixed transactions and automatically detect suspicious activity, including splitting crypto across multiple wallets or moving it repeatedly.

South Korean exchanges Upbit, Bithumb and Coinone announced they have lifted the trading caution designation on The Sandbox (SAND). The exchanges said they decided to remove the designation after determining that the issues behind the caution label had been resolved.

Bitcoin could face a deeper decline if it falls below $83,000, as newly opened long positions entered above that level may be unwound, on-chain analyst Axel Adler Jr. said in a blog post. He said buy pressure in the BTC futures market had climbed to its highest level since Aug. 19, while open interest increased by about 8,900 BTC over the past 24 hours. Over the same period, BTC rose from $83,400 to $85,300. Even if buy pressure slows, holding above $85,000 could signal the market is preserving those gains, Adler said.

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: 50.3% long, 49.7% short - Binance: 50.85% long, 49.15% short - OKX: 50.61% long, 49.39% short - Bybit: 51.35% long, 48.65% short

Aave founder Stani Kulechov said on X the Loop Safe module exploited in the theft of about 114 ETH was a third-party external adapter built on Aave, not an Aave v3 contract, and Aave v3 was unaffected. Earlier, blockchain security firm SlowMist said a vulnerability in the Loop Safe module linked to Aave v3 was exploited, resulting in the theft of assets worth about 114.09 ETH. The attacker was found to have exploited a flaw that allowed fake Safe wallets to pass authorization checks.