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Founders Fund, led by PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, has bought about $5 million worth of ANVL, the governance token of Anvil, a decentralized finance protocol focused on crypto-backed lending, CoinDesk reported. Anvil is also launching new tools aimed at expanding technology use by companies and financial institutions. Pantera Capital, Theta Blockchain Ventures, Bullish, and Protoscale Capital also took part in the transaction, while specific deal terms and the valuation were not disclosed.

Starknet has carried out an upgrade centered on expanding processing capacity, Crypto Briefing reported. The upgrade also includes minor changes to gas price calculations and the removal of some legacy infrastructure. Node operators must update their software. Starknet also adjusted gas weightings so transaction fees more accurately reflect the costs actually borne by the sequencer and the network.

Stablecoin trading platform Conduit has sued Tether after the issuer froze 2.76 million USDT without explanation, The Block reported. Conduit argued the funds have remained frozen for more than a year even though Brazilian police confirmed the company’s wallet was never designated for a freeze.

A more favorable backdrop has emerged for BTC as the likelihood of a Federal Reserve rate hike has fallen, but stronger institutional inflows are still needed for the asset to climb to $90,000-$93,000, Bitget Wallet head of research Lacy Zhang said, according to Crypto Briefing. Zhang said the probability of an October rate hike fell from 51% a week earlier to around 19% on Oct. 6, citing U.S. local time, after September nonfarm payroll growth came in at just 29,000. Zhang added that further declines in U.S. Treasury yields and inflation pressure could support Bitcoin. Even so, current ETF demand alone is not enough to ensure a breakout to $90,000-$93,000, Zhang said, pointing to Bitcoin's repeated inability to hold above $87,000. Institutional money is entering the market, Zhang said, but profit-taking and existing sell-side supply are absorbing those flows and capping price gains. To confirm whether BTC can extend its rally above $90,000, concerns over rate hikes need to keep easing alongside sustained net institutional inflows, Zhang added.

Wall Street could capture significant economic value from the growth of the crypto market as blockchain technology spreads into traditional finance, Morgan Stanley said, according to CoinDesk. The firm said crypto is more likely to develop through integration with existing financial infrastructure, including banks and capital markets, rather than by replacing the current financial system.

European Central Bank Executive Board member Piero Cipollone said the lack of a European digital payment instrument could increase the risk of fragmentation across tokenization platforms and weaken Europe’s monetary sovereignty, Cointelegraph reported. Cipollone said the ECB’s goal should be to create a digital euro that can be exchanged between banks and used for everyday transactions. He added the aim is not to replace the role of banks, but to provide infrastructure that banks need to compete in the digital era and help expand the reach and use cases of banks’ own payment solutions.

Taiwanese singer Jeffrey Huang, better known as Machi Big Brother, has been steadily reducing long positions in BTC and ETH, BlockBeats reported. Huang currently holds a 25x long position in 35,000 ETH, a 40x long position in 455 BTC, and a 10x long position in 145,000 HYPE, with unrealized gains of $948,000.

THORChain developer Chad Barraford said there were ways to restrict the movement of funds linked to the Bitget hack, but a practical response was difficult because validator consensus takes time. In an interview with Unchained, Barraford said THORChain currently does not have a function to immediately block specific wallets or transactions. Barraford said that even if a separate blocking mechanism were introduced, a hacker could move funds to other addresses while validators complete consensus. Barraford explained that reaching the two-thirds validator consensus needed to carry out certain measures takes about three days on average and as long as two weeks. Barraford added that shortening the response time would require changing the protocol structure to give some participants stronger control. If swaps are already under way, Barraford said, a response becomes even more difficult. Barraford said stopping transactions would require redistributing funds through a vault migration, which would also need approval from more than two-thirds of validators and could take one to two weeks. Barraford added that it is theoretically possible to preemptively block Ethereum addresses confirmed to be linked to a hack, but if the hacker moves funds to new addresses, trading can resume, making it difficult for that to serve as a fundamental solution.

Strike has launched a U.S. feature that pays interest generated on cash balances in Bitcoin, Crypto Briefing reported. The feature offers 3.6% annual interest on cash held in Strike accounts. Interest is calculated daily, but paid once a month in Bitcoin rather than dollars.

Winklevoss Asset Services has filed an S-1 registration statement with the U.S. SEC for a spot ZEC ETF, Unfolded reported.

Chinese-rooted crypto exchange OKX has raised new investment at a $25 billion valuation, and CEO Star Xu said the funding was driven by strategic alignment rather than a need for capital, Cointelegraph reported. The report added that the investment amount was not disclosed, while participants were said to include Circle, Ripple (XRP), Standard Chartered-backed SC Ventures, and hedge fund Qube Research & Technologies (QRT).

An address believed to be linked to the U.S. government transferred 264 BTC, worth about $22.87 million, to a new address. The funds were seized from the Bitfinex exchange hacker, BlockBeats reported.

Former UBS Asia head Joseph Chee said Bitcoin could enter a new major upcycle if China allows cryptocurrency trading again. Chee said the biggest variable shaping Bitcoin’s direction may lie in Beijing rather than Washington or Wall Street, while adding that the key condition would be effective risk management and that demand from China’s massive user base could be substantial if trading resumes.

AI-linked cryptocurrencies rose 54% through September, far outpacing the broader crypto market’s expected 24% gain over the same period, Zach Pandl, head of research at Grayscale, said in an analysis. Pandl said the segment is expected to be the most promising category among six crypto asset sectors.

DeFi Development, a Solana treasury company, has approved a buyback plan for its CHAD preferred stock. The move allows the company to repurchase all currently outstanding shares as well as any shares that may be issued in the future. The company said it has no immediate plans to begin repurchases and is first aiming to restore CHAD to its $10 par value. If the price stabilizes at par and later falls back below $10, the company may begin buybacks. Funds raised through the program will be used to buy additional SOL.

Crypto self-custody platform Bringin announced plans to launch a corporate banking platform for European businesses that links Bitcoin with traditional banking services. The platform also supports self-custody, allowing companies to hold Bitcoin directly without entrusting it to a third party. It also supports the Lightning Network, stablecoins and cross-border payments. Bringin said companies will be able to receive purchased Bitcoin directly into self-custody wallets and pay employee salaries or supplier invoices in Bitcoin, stablecoins and euros.

Macro economist Luke Gromen said expanding cash-settled derivatives tied to Bitcoin could limit BTC price gains. Gromen said a key issue is the shift in Bitcoin’s long-term returns, noting that the annualized growth rate between cycle peaks fell sharply across the two market cycles following the arrival of cash-settled BTC derivatives. He said derivatives let investors gain leveraged Bitcoin exposure without buying spot BTC, and as the derivatives market grows, more of the trading that sets Bitcoin’s price could take place outside the spot market where actual BTC changes hands. With returns declining as cycles repeat, Gromen said it is difficult to expect that trend to reverse naturally if the cash-settled market continues to expand.

Solana-based perpetual futures trading terminal Imperial has raised $1.5 million in a seed round to expand its platform, SolanaFloor reported. The round was led by Foundation Capital and included angel investors from the Solana ecosystem. The funds will be used to expand Imperial’s portfolio, including an integrated perpetual futures platform, a lending platform, and its flagship project Armada.

Sui has unveiled a verifiable agent arbiter in partnership with Google Cloud, allowing enterprises to verify whether AI agents acted within authorized scopes and guidelines. Evidence needed for verification is recorded using the Sui network and the Walrus protocol. Sui said "AI agents are executing transactions and operating beyond enterprise boundaries," making traditional standard logs insufficient. Counterparties, auditors and regulators require evidence proving the integrity of agent behavior, Sui added, and the verifiable agent arbiter provides that evidence while helping enterprises prepare for future regulation, including the EU AI Act.

Aptos Labs has unveiled MonoMove, an upgrade to the Aptos execution engine. In internal tests, some smart contract tasks ran up to 55 times faster than under the current Move VM, while transaction throughput was up to 11 times higher. Subject to governance approval, MonoMove is expected to complete full feature development by the end of 2026 and be deployed on mainnet in 2027.

Polymarket is piloting a new smart contract system to replace its existing token framework, The Block reported. The upgrade replaces the Gnosis-based framework introduced in 2019 with a single ERC-1155 position contract, while also replacing collateral assets with pUSD and adding exchanges and routers tailored to different market types.

Ripple is deepening its relationship with global hedge fund Brevan Howard, with the firm increasing its use of Ripple’s institutional infrastructure and digital asset products, The Block reported. Ripple Prime plans to provide multi-asset prime brokerage, clearing and financing services to Brevan Howard funds. The partnership builds on Brevan Howard’s existing investment in Ripple and its participation in Ripple’s $500 million strategic fundraising round last year.

South Korea’s ruling Democratic Party has raised the need to tax virtual assets as scheduled next year, Edaily reported. Oh Gi-hyoung, the ruling party’s floor coordinator on the National Assembly Strategy and Finance Committee, said during a government audit of the finance ministry late today that there was a need for predictability and public trust in decisions and legislation made by the National Assembly on virtual asset taxation. Oh added it would be inappropriate to immediately reverse the plan to begin taxation next year.

Raoul Pal, co-founder of financial research firm Real Vision, said a shift toward a weaker dollar could help drive further gains in the cryptocurrency market. On a Cointelegraph podcast, Pal said high bond yields and a strong dollar are constraining market liquidity. If the dollar weakens, he said, the crypto market could show signs of further upside, although a broad bullish signal has not yet formed across the full range of asset classes. On AI agents, Pal said wider use of stablecoins for content and service payments could increase demand for smart contract platforms such as Ethereum and Solana.

Coinbase announced the addition of PONS and WHUF to its listing roadmap.