• Dubai-based startup Utexo plans to relaunch Tether’s USDT on Bitcoin using the RGB protocol, with a public launch set for November 28.
• Lightning Network support is expected in the first quarter of 2027.
• The project faces a market where roughly $300 billion in stablecoins already sits on Ethereum, Tron and other networks.
• Bridge risk and limited DeFi support remain the main hurdles.

USDT first appeared on Bitcoin in 2014 through the Omni protocol. Tether ended issuance there in August 2023, blaming falling usage. The company later floated an RGB-based launch in 2025, but it never materialized.

Now Utexo is taking up the task. Tether led the startup’s $7.5 million seed round in March, and the new version will rely on Tether’s USDT0 protocol.

CEO Viktor Ihnatiuk argues two things have changed: speed and privacy. Bitcoin acts as the settlement layer, while RGB keeps transaction details off the public blockchain. He claims Lightning payments can settle in around 100 milliseconds.

RGB, in development since 2016, lets users issue and move assets through contracts tied to Bitcoin without publishing every detail on-chain. Participants validate transfers themselves, while cryptographic commitments anchored to Bitcoin provide security. It is neither a sidechain nor a rollup.

The protocol also works with Lightning, allowing USDT to move through payment channels without a base-layer transaction each time. Utexo believes confidentiality will appeal to businesses that dislike exposing their counterparties on a transparent ledger. The company says it can selectively disclose data for compliance and respond to law enforcement requests.

Utexo opened early access to its USDT Mint product on October 22, letting verified exchanges, wallets and market makers test minting and redemption on Bitcoin’s Signet network.

Getting existing tokens onto Bitcoin requires locking USDT0 on Arbitrum before an equivalent amount is minted on Bitcoin. Redemption reverses the process by burning the RGB asset. This means security depends on the bridge as well as Bitcoin and RGB, and bridges have historically attracted hackers.

Utexo’s goal is at least $1 billion in Bitcoin-based USDT within 12 months, with a median target of $5 billion and an ambitious ceiling of $10 billion. Whether demand materializes this time remains the key test.

A complete API penetration test should cover discovery, authentication, authorization across every role and tenant, data exposure, injection, abuse and rate limiting, business logic, and configuration, backed by reproducible evidence and a defined retest. The checklist below is written as buyer requirements: statements a security team can check a vendor's proposal or final report against, not instructions for performing the test yourself.

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The OCC is encouraging community banks to apply as permitted stablecoin issuers under the GENIUS Act as federal licensing requirements take effect on Jan. 18, 2027.

• The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) is urging community banks to apply as permitted stablecoin issuers under the GENIUS Act.
• Issuers must comply with the OCC’s finalized rules starting Jan. 18, 2027, though existing issuers with substantially complete applications can seek temporary waivers.
• The OCC has not yet started accepting applications and says the process will open once the required federal paperwork approval is completed.
• The push comes as banking groups warn that yield-bearing stablecoins could pull deposits from banks, and as critics challenge the OCC’s crypto trust charter approvals.

The OCC has called on community banks to step into the stablecoin market. On Monday, the U.S. banking regulator encouraged smaller lenders to apply to issue their own dollar-pegged tokens, either directly or through subsidiaries, as permitted issuers under the GENIUS Act.

The OCC said it wants community banks to help shape the future of payments. It framed the opportunity as a complement to its Community Bank Comeback initiatives, which aim to right-size regulation and tailor supervision so smaller banks can grow and compete.

In a separate bulletin published Oct. 21, the OCC said stablecoin issuers must comply with its newly finalized GENIUS Act regulations starting Jan. 18, 2027. Existing issuers that submit substantially complete applications by that date may request temporary waivers to keep operating while regulators review their applications. The OCC said it generally expects to grant such waivers where appropriate.

The invitation arrives as U.S. banking groups lobby lawmakers to restrict stablecoin yields. They worry that interest-paying tokens could draw deposits away from traditional banks. By encouraging smaller lenders to enter the same market, the OCC appears to be pushing back against a future where stablecoin payments are left to large banks and crypto companies.

The regulator has been under pressure over its approach to crypto firms. The Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA) has sued the OCC, accusing it of exceeding its legal authority by granting national trust-bank status to crypto companies. Senator Elizabeth Warren has also asked the OCC to explain its chartering of nine crypto-focused institutions. She argued they do not meet federal regulations and pose a risk to the financial system.

Zcash co-founder Sean Bowe has proposed halting the automatic 8% ZEC allocation to Zcash Community Grants, citing a treasury of about $125 million.

• Zcash co-founder Sean Bowe has proposed ending the automatic 8% share of newly created ZEC that goes to Zcash Community Grants (ZCG).
• Bowe estimates the program holds about $125 million after existing commitments, using an illustrative ZEC price of $1,300.
• The redirected funds would go to a reserve for future mining rewards, while ZCG would keep what it already has.
• The proposal comes amid criticism of a ZCG-funded outreach program at an adult-industry convention, though Bowe’s draft does not mention it.

Zcash co-founder Sean Bowe has called for an end to automatic funding for the privacy network’s community grants program. He argues the treasury is now large enough to cover years of spending without any new money flowing in.

His draft proposal, published late Monday, would stop the automatic allocation and send ZCG’s 8% share of newly created ZEC into a reserve for future miners. The committee would keep its current assets and continue awarding grants from them.

Bowe puts ZCG’s assets at about $125 million after outstanding grant commitments, valuing the remaining balance at an illustrative ZEC price of $1,300. The committee’s dashboard showed about 91,453 ZEC and $8.8 million in cash, with $2.4 million already committed to grantees.

The inflow continues no matter how much the committee already holds. At the network’s target pace, it receives about 144 ZEC a day, roughly $68 million a year.

By comparison, the Financial Privacy Foundation, which administers ZCG’s funds, reported just over $1.5 million in program expenses for the first quarter. That works out to about $6 million annualized, less than a tenth of the yearly inflow. Even if ZEC fell to $500, Bowe estimates the treasury would cover about five years of spending at an assumed $10 million a year.

ZCG’s five-member committee is elected by a community advisory panel and selects grants without a separate coinholder vote. A second funding program receives 12% of newly created ZEC, and holders vote on its grants every quarter.

Bowe wants to keep that larger allocation intact. His draft argues that continuing to pile funds into ZCG’s separate custody and governance arrangements adds risk when the program already has substantial reserves.

The redirected allocation would flow into the Network Sustainability Mechanism, which is designed to support future mining rewards, and would stay there for the rest of the grants stream’s existing term.

The proposal landed as a ZCG-funded outreach program drew criticism. The team behind it, ZECsy, demonstrated private payments at an adult-industry convention in Edison, New Jersey, over the weekend. It had requested $550,000 for work spanning adult-industry events, crypto conferences and workshops, including helping workers facing banking restrictions accept payments privately.

Solana’s Firedancer team now requires researchers to burn 1 SOL per bug report to combat AI-generated submissions flooding its security program.

• Firedancer, the Solana validator client built by Jump Crypto, now requires researchers to burn 1 SOL (about $100) per bug report.
• The fee is nonrefundable, even for invalid, out-of-scope or duplicate reports.
• A recent audit contest drew 809 reports but produced only 127 unique security findings, and Jump believes AI helped create nearly all of them.
• Jump is temporarily boosting rewards, with critical Alpenglow flaws eligible for up to $300,000.

The team behind Solana’s Firedancer software has introduced a paywall for bug hunters. Researchers must now burn 1 SOL, roughly $100, with every submission. The goal is to cut down on AI-generated spam and give engineers more time to investigate real security flaws.

Under terms updated on Monday, the burned tokens are permanently removed from circulation. The cost is nonrefundable whether a report turns out to be invalid, outside the program’s scope, or a duplicate. Reports submitted without a burn are not eligible for rewards.

Jump Crypto built Firedancer as an alternative to Agave, the main software validators use to check and process Solana transactions. A serious bug in this software can stop validators from processing payments or cause them to disagree about account balances. That could disrupt trades and transfers across the network. Every hour spent sorting through duplicate or unworkable reports is an hour not spent fixing vulnerabilities like these.

The decision follows a $1 million audit competition that ran from April 9 to May 9. It attracted 809 reports from 162 researchers, yet produced only 127 unique security findings once non-exploitable observations were excluded. Nearly half of the valid submissions were duplicates.

Jump believes AI agents helped find or write almost every submission. In an Oct. 16 review, Jump’s Ishan Bhatt argued that AI has made finding bugs cheap while judging them remains expensive. Engineers still had to reproduce each problem and check whether the proposed attack could actually work. Some reports flagged apparent weaknesses while overlooking protections elsewhere in the code.

The review backlog peaked at 299 open reports. As checks slowed, other researchers rediscovered bugs that had been submitted but not yet fixed or disclosed. About 80% of duplicates arrived more than three days after the original report.

The contest had already charged $100 per submission and capped researchers at one report a day. Jump says charging a fee discourages people from sending large volumes of speculative findings. The new platform also limits each main report section to 3,000 characters.

Alongside the new fee, Jump is raising payouts. Eligible findings receive double the standard reward through Nov. 20, and triple for bugs specific to Alpenglow, Solana’s new voting system. Critical Alpenglow findings can qualify for up to $300,000.

The move shows how AI is changing security work in crypto. Automated tools can generate reports faster than humans can review them, so teams are now using economic costs to filter the noise.

More than 11.1 million Bitcoin (BTC), representing approximately 55% of all mined coins, cannot be linked to a known owner, according to an October ownership snapshot from Galaxy Research. The findings highlight how Bitcoin ownership remains difficult to identify despite growing institutional adoption, including spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs), corporate holdings, and professional custody services.

TL;DR

• 11.1 million BTC remain unattributed: Galaxy Research estimates that approximately 55% of Bitcoin’s mined supply cannot be linked to a known entity.
• Institutional adoption hasn’t solved ownership attribution: Exchanges, ETFs, and governments account for part of the identified supply, while many wallet addresses remain unidentified.
• Unknown doesn’t mean lost: The figure may include individual holdings, inaccessible coins, and institutional wallets that researchers have not identified.

Galaxy Research Finds 55% of Bitcoin Supply Unattributed

Galaxy Research estimates that approximately 11.1 million BTC out of roughly 20.1 million mined coins sit in addresses it cannot connect to an exchange, investment fund, government, or another known entity.

Alex Thorn, Galaxy’s head of research, said the findings suggest that individual investors may still control a substantial portion of Bitcoin through self-custody, where holders manage their own private keys rather than relying on exchanges or financial institutions.

The remaining approximately 45% of mined supply has been attributed to identifiable holders or groups. These include cryptocurrency exchanges, investment funds, government wallets, and early-mining addresses associated with the Patoshi pattern.

The figures show that expanding institutional participation has not eliminated the challenges of identifying who controls individual Bitcoin addresses.

Why Bitcoin Ownership Is Difficult to Identify

Bitcoin’s blockchain records transactions and wallet balances publicly, but addresses do not automatically reveal the identities of their owners.

Research firms identify major holders by analyzing transaction histories and linking addresses to entities whose ownership can be established through public records, disclosures, or other evidence.

However, a single individual can control multiple wallets, while an institution may distribute assets across numerous addresses or use third-party custody arrangements. These practices can make ownership attribution more complicated.

The distinction is important because an unattributed wallet does not necessarily belong to a retail investor. It simply means researchers have not established a reliable connection between the address and a known entity.

Readers can follow related developments through Bitcoinist’s Bitcoin coverage.

Unattributed Bitcoin Could Include Lost Coins

Galaxy’s estimate does not mean that 11.1 million BTC have been permanently lost or are inaccessible.

Some coins may belong to holders who retain control of their private keys but have not publicly disclosed their holdings. Others could be held by unidentified institutions, private trading desks, or companies whose wallet addresses have not been linked to their names.

The total may also include coins that owners can no longer access because they lost their private keys or died without leaving recovery instructions.

Galaxy separately identifies approximately 1,123,658 BTC associated with the Patoshi mining pattern, which researchers link to early Bitcoin mining activity and commonly associate with Satoshi Nakamoto. That classification is based on historical blockchain analysis rather than independently confirmed real-world identity.

Wall Street’s Bitcoin Holdings Continue to Expand

Institutional investors have become increasingly visible in Bitcoin markets through spot ETFs, corporate treasury strategies, and professional custody services.

BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust is among the identifiable institutional holders, alongside other investment products and government-controlled wallets. Yet identifying these large holdings does not provide a complete picture of Bitcoin’s ownership distribution.

The growth of regulated investment products has also created a distinction between direct ownership and investment exposure. ETF investors can gain exposure to Bitcoin’s price without personally controlling the underlying coins or their private keys.

For additional context, readers can explore Bitcoinist’s cryptocurrency coverage and its blockchain news.

What the Findings Mean for Bitcoin’s Ownership Landscape

Galaxy’s research highlights the limits of determining Bitcoin ownership from public blockchain data alone. Although transactions are transparent, connecting wallet addresses to specific individuals or institutions requires additional information.

The 55% unattributed figure therefore should not be interpreted as a measure of permanently lost Bitcoin, nor does it establish how much of that supply is held by retail investors.

Instead, the findings illustrate how Bitcoin’s original self-custody model continues to coexist with expanding institutional participation. As financial firms accumulate more coins, a substantial share of the mined supply remains outside the ownership categories researchers can confidently identify.

Cybersecurity has become an important part of the modern digital world. Businesses depend on computer networks, cloud platforms, websites, applications and digital services to operate. Protecting these systems from cyberattacks requires people who understand technology, recognize security weaknesses, investigate suspicious activity and help organizations reduce risk. For beginners, however, entering cybersecurity can feel confusing. There […]

The post Cybersecurity Career Path for Beginners: A Step-by-Step Guide appeared first on Hackercool Magazine.

Elon Musk says SpaceX has secured $40 billion in debt financing for artificial intelligence infrastructure, highlighting the enormous capital requirements of the AI computing race. The announcement came alongside a warning that specialized cloud providers could face widespread consolidation as lenders become more selective about financing companies whose revenue depends heavily on AI data centers.

TL;DR

• $40 billion financing: Musk says SpaceX secured callable debt primarily intended to finance GPU purchases.
• Neocloud shakeout warning: Musk predicts significant consolidation among specialized AI cloud providers as credit becomes harder to access.
• Revenue diversification matters: SpaceX’s Starlink and launch businesses may help it secure financing unavailable to companies relying almost entirely on AI infrastructure.

SpaceX’s Financing Highlights AI’s Growing Capital Requirements

Musk announced the $40 billion financing on October 25, 2026, saying SpaceX could access capital because of its credit standing and revenue from businesses beyond AI computing.

The debt is primarily callable, meaning it can be repaid early under the applicable terms. GPU deliveries are expected in the first half of 2027, although the precise relationship between the financing and the delivery schedule requires careful distinction between reported details and confirmed contractual terms.

The scale of the financing illustrates how expensive it has become to build computing capacity for advanced AI systems. Graphics processing units (GPUs) are essential for training and running many modern AI models, but acquiring them is only one part of the investment. Data centers also require power, cooling, networking equipment and suitable facilities.

Why Musk Expects a Neocloud Shakeout

Neocloud providers specialize in renting GPU computing capacity to businesses and AI developers. Their services allow customers to access powerful hardware without building their own infrastructure.

However, these companies often face substantial upfront costs before generating enough revenue to cover financing and operating expenses. If customer commitments weaken or data-center projects experience delays, debt obligations can become more difficult to meet.

Musk warned that debt markets had largely closed to companies without substantial revenue independent of AI data centers. He predicted that more than 200 Neocloud providers could consolidate, leaving only a smaller group of survivors.

That prediction remains Musk’s assessment, not an established outcome. The pace of consolidation will depend on funding availability, customer demand and the economics of individual operators.

Diversified Revenue Could Give SpaceX an Advantage

SpaceX has revenue streams beyond AI computing, including Starlink satellite internet and rocket launches. Those businesses could make lenders more comfortable with its ability to service debt during periods of uncertainty in the AI market.

By contrast, a provider whose earnings depend almost entirely on renting GPUs must demonstrate that customers will use enough computing capacity to justify the cost of its infrastructure.

The distinction matters as investors question whether AI-related spending will deliver sustainable returns. Readers can follow related developments through Bitcoinist’s technology coverage and its AI and blockchain reporting.

What Comes Next for AI Infrastructure?

The financing announcement highlights the growing divide between companies that can fund long-term infrastructure projects and those that must continually secure outside capital. Strong credit and diversified revenue may provide an advantage, but neither guarantees that expensive AI investments will generate attractive returns.

For additional context, Reuters’ reporting on SpaceX’s financing provides an independent account of the announcement and the remaining questions around its terms.

The next indicators to watch include GPU delivery schedules, actual infrastructure spending, credit conditions and the ability of neocloud providers to secure long-term customers.

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Given that water is 1,000 times denser than air, moving through those two mediums requires very different mechanics—or so one might assume. Yet birds like gulls and puffins can plunge into the sea, swim underwater, and leap back into the air to fly away. And now engineers at MIT and EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland, have designed a robot that can do likewise. 

The “flapping-wing aerial-aquatic vehicle,” or FAAV, weighs less than 300 grams (about half a pound) and is equipped with a central fuselage, two flexible wings, and a steerable tail. The body contains a battery and a waterproof electric motor that drives a crankshaft, which pumps the wings up and down at preset frequencies. The wings are made of thin membranes that are coated with hydrophobic nanoparticles to help wick away water. And the tail is motorized, enabling it to change its angle to help the robot fly up or dive down.

In experiments carried out in a water tank and at Lake Geneva, a team led by Raphael Zufferey, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at MIT, identified combinations of wing size, flapping frequency, and tail angle that enable the robot to smoothly transition from swimming to flying. 

The best results came with medium-size wings that were flexible enough to minimize flapping amplitude in water and also firm enough to keep the robot aloft in the air. The speeds and flapping frequencies were similar to those used by actual birds, and a pitch of 70 degrees—a relatively steep angle—allowed the robot to make the leap from water to air. Interestingly, although many diving birds paddle their feet to help them take off from the water’s surface, the team found that the bot didn’t need feet at all.

The engineers’ results could help pave the way for a new class of drones and vehicles that could fly to and sample from aquatic regions too dangerous for traditional vessels to access.

“Our dream vision is for oceanographers, marine biologists, and members of coastal communities to launch this robot from a boat, or from shore, and it would fly close to the area of interest, such as an iceberg or a port facility, or over a pod of whales,” says Zufferey. “It would dive into the water to take a measurement or collect a sample, and fly back to deliver the data at a fraction of the cost of traditional methods. Then it could go back out to dive for more.” 

The researchers are now trying to design wings that can turn as well as flap. They will also test the robot’s performance under turbulent conditions, such as swimming in choppy waters and flying through wind. Then they hope to deploy the vehicle to help answer questions in ocean science.

“One of the major challenges in ocean science is collecting data both frequently and across many locations, which is something this robot could do in the future,” Zufferey says. “You could send this out not just every week, but every hour. It could fly out at high speeds, dive in, fly back, deliver its data, and go back out, multiple times.” 

When Tristan Brown, an associate professor of history at MIT, first examined a Chinese tea chest label displayed at Old South Meeting House, he had no reason to doubt its story. Descendants of the Boston blacksmith Thomas Wells had donated the label in 1987, saying it had been recovered after colonial protesters threw tea into Boston Harbor in 1773. 

But after a year of research, Brown reached a different conclusion: The label was made nearly a century later. The decisive clue came when he read the Chinese text in Cantonese rather than Mandarin, as previous scholars had done. He found that the characters had been used phonetically, in slightly variant forms across contemporary sources, to represent the name of Smith, Archer & Co., a US firm that acquired Asian tea for shipment to American markets during the 1860s and 1870s.

COURTESY OF MIT GLOBAL HUMANITIES

Working with the Wells family, he traced the label to a relative who traveled from Michigan to California during the Gold Rush era before returning and operating a business known as the California Tea Store. Brown argues that claims for its revolutionary pedigree probably developed later, amid the centennial commemorations of the 1870s.

The discovery does not make the label historically insignificant, he says. Instead, what began as an inquiry into a supposed artifact of the Boston Tea Party became a study of how ordinary objects acquire historical authority, and how historical memory itself is made.

“History is never finished,” he says. “Even objects that have sat in museums for decades can reveal entirely new stories when we ask new questions.” 

The average American throws out around 81 pounds of clothing each year, and there are few options for recycling it. MIT engineers hope to cut down on that textile waste with a new type of yarn. 

The thermoplastic yarn mimics the properties of conventional elastic yarns, which typically combine spandex with polyester or nylon. Those fibers would have to be separated for recycling—a process that isn’t practical. But the MIT team found a way to create a similarly stretchy yarn from two variations of polyethylene, a material commonly used in milk jugs and grocery bags. Because they come from the same chemical family, the yarn can be melted as is. Svetlana Boriskina, who led the work as a research scientist in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, says a garment made from this material could then be spun into new yarn for a next generation of clothing. Even after 10 cycles of melting and respinning, the yarn stays as strong and flexible as conventional thread. 

“Now we have something that can be knitted and woven,” Boriskina says. “That is the next stage.” Someday, the researchers hope, a polyethylene garment could be dropped in a collection bin and sent to a recycling facility, promoting a more sustainable, circular textile economy.