Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin Price Trades Above $81,500 as Fed Keeps Rates Steady in Split Vote

The Federal Reserve left its benchmark rate unchanged Wednesday, holding the federal funds target range at 3.75% to 4%. The bitcoin price showed some volatility around $81,000.

The decision passed 10-2, and the dissents carry as much weight as the outcome. Governor Lisa Cook and Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack wanted a quarter-point increase. It is the first time since 1992 that a Fed governor and a regional bank president have dissented together on the same side.

Fed Chair Kevin Warsh faced reporters after the vote and said politics played no role in the decision, days before the midterm elections. Warsh has said he does not favor forward guidance absent a crisis, which leaves investors to read the data themselves. 

The committee’s statement dropped its earlier language about when a hike might support a return to 2% inflation. In its place is a line saying more information will guide the policy stance. The Fed also described growth as strong, up from solid.

The signal points toward tightening. Fed funds futures and the Fed’s own dot plot lean toward a rate increase by December, and some pricing puts the odds near three in four. Inflation has been running hot, and the two dissenters are the officials who want to act on it.

Bitcoin price reaction

Bitcoin price’s reaction was restrained. The bitcoin price spiked to about $81,700 in the minutes after the announcement, fell below $80,500, and then recovered toward $81,000. Most traders expected a hold, so the muted move surprises nobody.

Bitcoin’s first response to Fed news tends to be modest, and that the real direction often emerges over the following day. Spot Bitcoin ETFs drew $110 million in net inflows on October 26 and $176 million on October 27, a sign that some institutional money is buying the dip. Other observers have flagged large holders selling into strength.

That tension defines crypto’s position right now. Bitcoin sits about a third below its October 2025 record near $126,000. A rate-hike path works against an asset that has thrived on cheap money, and the market has spent months adjusting to the possibility that the easy-money era is over. 

Some traders read the hold as evidence the Fed will move slowly. Others see December as the real test. For now, the level to watch is a bitcoin price of $80,000. It has held as support in recent sessions, and a clean break below it would expose the next floor. 

Warsh and his colleagues have said they will wait for incoming data before acting. Bitcoin will have to wait along with everyone else.

Midterms up next

Bitcoin’s next big political test arrives on November 3, when voters across the country head to the polls. Crypto has not really dominated the campaign trail. 

The crypto industry spent about $176 million on more than 100 midterm races to build a bipartisan bloc in Congress that could protect its interests after President Donald Trump left office. Fairshake, the industry’s largest super PAC, led the effort and directed strategy as it had in the 2024 cycle.

At the time of writing, the bitcoin price is $81,478.

This post Bitcoin Price Trades Above $81,500 as Fed Keeps Rates Steady in Split Vote first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Google Debuting a Bank-Grade Crypto Custody Tool Built on Split Keys: Report

Google is reportedly unveiling Google Multi-Party Compute, a crypto custody system that splits signing keys across separate systems, at its first digital assets symposium in New York today. The product is in private preview with several financial institutions. Alphabet has started using it to secure its own assets, according to CoinDesk reporting.

Google plans commercial availability in early 2027 and has not disclosed pricing.

The system applies multi-party computation to a signing key. The key is divided into fragments held by separate parties or machines, and a transaction requires a set number of fragments to sign. 

The full key is never assembled in one place. A bank could hold one share on its own hardware, another in Google Cloud, and a third with a rival cloud provider. Institutions can set thresholds such as two-of-three or five-of-seven. Before any signature, a policy engine running inside Google’s Confidential Space checks the transfer against limits, destination restrictions, and approval rules. 

Google says it has no access to key shares in unencrypted form, per CoinDesk.

Crypto’s security issues

The pitch rests on a persistent problem. Chainalysis attributed 43.8% of cryptocurrency stolen in 2024 to compromised private keys. DeFiLlama data shows roughly 40% of the $16.69 billion lost to hacks through June came from key compromises. In June, an attacker took seven keys from one developer’s computer during the Humanity Protocol breach and drained wallets across two networks. 

Such incidents show how concentrated signing authority creates a single point of failure. The industry has responded by recommending multi-vendor multisignature setups that spread control across hardware and software providers.

Google also frames the product against AI-enabled fraud. Chainalysis found that scams linked to AI tool vendors averaged $3.2 million per operation in 2025, compared with $719,000 for other scams. The report links the two figures but does not prove that AI caused the difference. 

Ethereum researcher Justin Drake has warned that AI could eventually find mathematical shortcuts that weaken wallet signatures. No AI system has shown that capability. Google’s MPC design targets stolen credentials and unauthorized transfers, not a break in the underlying cryptography.

Quantum computing presents a separate, longer-term risk. Google researchers estimated that a sufficiently powerful future machine could derive a bitcoin private key from an exposed public key in about nine minutes. Roughly 6.9 million bitcoin have exposed public keys. Google says its architecture can adopt post-quantum signatures later without forcing institutions to rebuild their systems, but it has set no timetable. Background on how quantum machines threaten bitcoin explains which addresses are most exposed.

Google enters a market led by Fireblocks, Fordefi, and BitGo. Google argued to CoinDesk that its banking relationships and security expertise give it an advantage. It also positions itself as a neutral supplier for banks that do not want to rely on competitors. 

Banks already use specialized platforms, such as BNP Paribas’s custody work with Metaco, and multi-institution vaults built with BitGo.

This post Google Debuting a Bank-Grade Crypto Custody Tool Built on Split Keys: Report first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Strategy (MSTR) Shareholders Approve Daily Dividends on Four Preferred Stocks

Strategy shareholders have approved the Daily Dividends amendment, the company announced Wednesday. Preliminary results show 99.3% of votes cast were in favor, according to Executive Chairman Michael Saylor.

The amendment allows STRF, STRC, STRK and STRD to accrue dividends every calendar day, including weekends and holidays.

The proposal surfaced on September 25, when the company asked holders to attend a special meeting on October 28. Strategy said the change “would reduce reinvestment lag, enhance liquidity and market efficiency, and increase price stability.”

At the time Strategy said that they “believe these enhancements can also benefit our common stockholders by increasing the attractiveness and utility of our Digital Credit instruments, supporting our ability to access preferred equity capital efficiently and expanding the capital markets toolkit we use to execute our Bitcoin Treasury strategy.

Under the approved structure, dividends accrue every day but are paid on the next business day. Strategy has said scheduled dividend rates and total dividend obligations remain unchanged. The company has argued the change could benefit common stockholders by making its Digital Credit instruments easier to use and easier to fund.

The timing depends on board action. If the board approves the change and required filings are completed, the first STRC record and payment dates would fall on November 1 and 2, 2026. For STRF, STRK and STRD, the first record and payment dates would be January 1 and 4, 2027. Those dates also depend on operational readiness.

STRC pays a variable rate that the company can change at its discretion. Its rate for the month ended June 30, 2026 was 11.50%, according to Strategy’s quarterly report. Shareholders approved moving STRC to semi-monthly payments in June, and the new amendment builds on that precedent.

In short, STRC is designed to help Strategy raise money from investors through a preferred stock offering targeting a stable $100 price and a variable dividend yield, then use that capital to continuously buy Bitcoin regardless of its short-term price movements. This creates a potential global dollar-cost-averaging machine for Bitcoin.

Final vote certification will come in a company filing. Board action remains the final step before any new payment schedule begins.

Strategy’s bitcoin moves this year 

The vote comes after bitcoin fell into somewhat of a bear market. Strategy slowed its bitcoin purchases this year and sold some holdings to fund preferred dividends, interest payments and repurchases. 

The company’s common stock, MSTR, is down near 50% over the past year, though it has risen by a figure approaching 1,000% since Strategy began buying bitcoin in 2020.

Earlier this week, Strategy said they paused Bitcoin purchases for the prior week and maintained its holdings at 848,517 BTC, acquired for $64.02 billion at an average price of $75,446 per Bitcoin. 

The company spent $204.9 million repurchasing STRC preferred stock while retaining a $4.83 billion cash reserve. 

Fellow bitcoin-treasury company Strive pays cash dividends on its Variable Rate Series A Perpetual Preferred Stock (SATA) every business day. This started on June 16, after moving from monthly payments. 

This post Strategy (MSTR) Shareholders Approve Daily Dividends on Four Preferred Stocks first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitwise Raises Bitcoin Target to $1.6 Million as Institutions Keep Buying

Bitwise Asset Management this week released its 2027 Bitcoin Long-Term Capital Market Assumptions, raising its 2036 base-case price target for bitcoin to $1,599,766 from $1.3 million a year earlier. 

The forecast implies a 34.3% compound annual growth rate from the roughly $83,557 price the firm used as of September 30, 2026. Bitwise’s bear case is $130,686 and its bull case is $3.67 million.

The base case rests on three arguments. Institutional investors will keep adding bitcoin to portfolios. New supply stays fixed on a predictable schedule. Rising government debt will push investors toward assets that cannot be printed. 

Institutional investors love bitcoin

Bitwise estimates that institutions controlling about $147 trillion could allocate 1% to 5% of their portfolios to bitcoin, which the firm says would mean $1.5 trillion to $7.4 trillion of purchases. The network issues about $14 billion in new coins per year, and Bitwise argues that gap will push prices higher.

Institutional plumbing is already expanding. U.S. spot bitcoin ETPs hold about $108 billion, according to the report. Banks and brokerages are building custody and trading services, and a recent report describes sovereign wealth funds and family offices buying during the 2026 decline. 

Regulators are also moving. A Federal Reserve capital proposal aimed at easing bank custody rules could widen access for large institutions, if adopted.

The past year tested that thesis. Bitcoin fell 53.4% from its October 2025 peak of $126,080 to a June 30, 2026 low of $58,717. Bitwise calls that drawdown the shallowest in the asset’s history. Prior cycle declines were 77%, 84% and 86%. 

Whether the shallow decline signals a new pattern or a pause is less settled. Bitwise expects the four-year cycle to weaken as the investor base broadens. Others see the cycle still at work. 

VanEck argues the current slump follows the historical halving pattern, and Fidelity has pointed to a possible floor around November 2026 if past timing holds. NYDIG has said a repeat of earlier bear markets could push the cycle low near $38,000 to $39,000. Cathie Wood has argued the market is nearly through the downturn. Each view carries a different price floor and timeline.

Bitcoin’s volatility 

Volatility is the other pillar of the forecast. Bitwise models a 27.8% average volatility over the decade, the midpoint between today’s level and its 2036 expectation. Grayscale’s research head recently put one-year volatility at 43%, against a 10-year average of 64%, and lower than the volatility of 19% of S&P 500 companies. Charles Schwab’s research found the asset remains prone to sharp drawdowns despite the lower readings. A Deutsche Bank analyst has described the trend as a sign of a maturing market.

Bitwise also reports that bitcoin’s correlation with gold reached a record 0.58 in September 2026. The firm expects that relationship to deepen, which positions bitcoin as a store-of-value asset. That link cuts both ways. If gold weakens, bitcoin may lose the support it gained from the same investor demand. Gemini has predicted that at least one country will shift part of its gold reserves into bitcoin in 2026, a forecast that has yet to materialize.

The report is candid about what could go wrong. Bitcoin’s track record is short. Its software was developed in 2008 and 2009, trading began on public exchanges in 2010, the first institutional product with bitcoin exposure launched in 2014, and spot ETPs arrived in 2024. 

Bitwise writes that forecasts built heavily on history carry uncertainty because future returns may differ from the past. Regulation is a second concern. The Clarity Act’s failure in Congress, which the report traces to Democratic concerns about ethics provisions, shows that progress can stall, even as the firm argues recent advances are unlikely to be rolled back. 

Technology is a third. Quantum computing, and mathematical advances accelerated by AI, could threaten the cryptography that secures bitcoin wallets. Bitwise says the network will need a major upgrade at some point, and holders who fail to move funds to new addresses could be exposed. The developers have made progress over the past year, the report says, but major issues remain unresolved.

Bitcoin’s price is near $80,500.

This post Bitwise Raises Bitcoin Target to $1.6 Million as Institutions Keep Buying first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

U.S. Treasury Says U.S. ‘Will Win in the Digital Asset Stack’ as Clarity Act Stalls

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Tuesday that American leadership in digital assets could reinforce the dollar’s global position, even as Congress has stalled on the market-structure legislation meant to govern them.

Speaking at Ripple’s Swell conference in New York with CEO Brad Garlinghouse, Bessent argued that the foundations of reserve-currency power are shifting. For much of modern history, he said, the dollar’s dominance rested largely on military strength. 

“We will keep our military umbrella, but increasingly, it becomes a technological umbrella,” he said. 

He grouped digital assets with artificial intelligence and semiconductors as areas where the United States and China are competing to build dominant infrastructure, and suggested the financial rails countries choose will shape the dollar’s reach.

The most concrete link he drew runs through stablecoins, dollar-pegged tokens whose issuers typically hold reserves that include U.S. Treasury securities. Bessent said stablecoins could give people in countries with high inflation or volatile currencies easier access to dollars. 

CoinGecko data puts the share of stablecoins denominated in dollars above 98%, with Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC the largest. Bessent himself put the figure above 90%. The exact number differs, but the dollar clearly dominates the category.

NEW: Secretary Scott Bessent says the Treasury is moving on crypto regulation with or without Congress

He says they will “bring the SEC and CFTC together to close the gaps through regulation.” pic.twitter.com/JnsT3oxVEn

— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) October 28, 2026

Bessent has also argued that stablecoin reserves could increase demand for Treasury debt. Last year he suggested stablecoins could generate $2 trillion in short-term demand for Treasuries and bills. That projection depends on how quickly stablecoin supply grows, what reserve rules apply, and how issuers choose to invest.

Bitcoin traded around $80,000 to $81,000 this week ahead of the Federal Reserve decision. Bitcoin advocates have long argued that a neutral, non-issuer asset offers something different from dollar-pegged tokens.

Broader crypto legislation trends

The regulatory backdrop is more uncertain. The Comptroller of the Currency has finalized its rule implementing the GENIUS Act, which sets requirements for payment stablecoin issuers. The federal framework takes effect January 18, 2027. 

The broader CLARITY Act, which would establish market-structure rules for digital assets, failed a Senate procedural vote on September 15, 49 to 50, short of the 60 votes needed. Disputes included ethics provisions related to federal officials’ crypto interests and stablecoin yield. 

Banks and the White House clashed over those yield terms.

Treasury Bessent’s willingness to work around Clarity Act failure

Bessent called the setback disappointing. He said Treasury could work with the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to address regulatory gaps. “At Treasury, we have a lot of convening powers,” he said, describing the agencies as “great partners.” 

He also said regulators could set guardrails to prevent banks from cutting off crypto firms, a practice known as debanking. 

“I think we can set up regulatory best practices, guardrails that will prevent that from happening again,” he said.

Those remarks did not set out a formal plan, working group, or timeline. Agency action can clarify rules within existing authority, but it lacks the permanence of an act of Congress, and it can be reversed by a future administration. 

Next week’s midterm elections could further stall the CLARITY Act, according to TD Cowen.

This post U.S. Treasury Says U.S. ‘Will Win in the Digital Asset Stack’ as Clarity Act Stalls first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Brazilian Banking Giant Itaú Formalizes Crypto Role as Brazil Closes Its Licensing Window

Itaú Unibanco, the largest private bank in Brazil, has formalized its role as a cryptocurrency service provider before the Central Bank of Brazil. The filing covers intermediation and custody of crypto assets, the same activities the regulator assigns to brokerage firms, according to local reports. The news arrives as the country’s crypto sector faces a compressed timeline to obtain licenses.

Itaú’s move places the bank inside a licensing framework that did not exist a year ago. Brazil’s central bank requires every company that holds, moves, or trades crypto for customers to register as a regulated provider. By filing, Itaú tells the market that it intends to be one of them.

For Brazilian users, the change matters most for custody. A provider that holds crypto for clients must keep those assets separate from the firm’s own money, meet minimum capital requirements, and follow the same governance and anti-money laundering standards that apply to securities brokers. 

Clients of an authorized bank gain a clearer legal footing than clients of an unregulated app or an offshore exchange. For the bank, the filing is a commitment. A regulated crypto operation carries compliance costs, audit obligations, and reporting duties that smaller competitors may struggle to meet. 

The move also signals that Brazil’s biggest lenders plan to keep crypto inside the domestic financial system rather than leave it to foreign platforms.

Itau’s embrace of bitcoin and crypto

Itaú’s crypto story started before the new rules. The bank announced plans for crypto custody in 2022, when it was building a tokenization platform. In late 2025, it began letting retail clients buy and sell bitcoin through its investment app, íon. The crypto assets traded on íon are held in custody by Itaú itself, which made the bank’s position an operational one long before it became a regulatory one.

The regulatory backdrop came in 2025 and early 2026, when the central bank published Resolutions 519, 520, and 521. They created a new license category called Sociedades Prestadoras de Serviços de Ativos Virtuais, or SPSAVs, and the rules took effect February 2, 2026. 

The framework sorts providers into three categories: intermediaries, custodians, and brokers. It requires formal segregation of client and company assets, sets minimum capital levels, and extends the customer protection, governance, internal control, security, and anti-money laundering rules that already govern banks and brokers. 

Resolution 521 brought crypto transactions into the foreign-exchange regime. Transfers with unauthorized counterparties face a $100,000 cap, which limits how crypto moves across borders outside regulated channels.

Companies already operating when the regime took effect had to file for authorization within a transition period. 

That timing is why Itaú’s filing reads as a response to a pressure point, not a routine update.

Stricter standards follow. On July 1, 2026, the central bank approved tighter rules. Beginning in 2027, providers must meet financial security requirements similar to those for securities brokers and distributors. 

The regulator also barred institutions in Segment 5, the simplified-rules category for smaller banks, from offering virtual asset services. That decision pushes crypto activity toward larger, better-capitalized players, the group Itaú belongs to.

This post Brazilian Banking Giant Itaú Formalizes Crypto Role as Brazil Closes Its Licensing Window first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

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Bitcoin Price Rests Near $80,500 as Midterms, Fed Decision Loom

Bitcoin price traded near $80,500 most of Tuesday, holding above the $80,000 level that has become the market’s line in the sand. Prices ranged between roughly $79,400 and $80,800 over the day, according to Bitcoin Magazine Pro data, and the asset was up about 0.3% over the prior 24 hours by mid-afternoon Eastern time.

The steadiness follows a rough stretch. Bitcoin price fell below $80,000 on Monday as investors cut risk exposure, weighed down by concerns about AI-sector valuations and higher oil prices. Spot Bitcoin ETFs have also been shedding money. Still, the selling hasn’t turned into panic. Bitcoin price has mostly stayed in a band between about $79,000 and $81,000 this week.

The longer view is harder on anyone who bought near the top. Bitcoin’s all-time high sits near $126,000, set in October 2025, and the price is roughly 30% below where it was a year ago.

The Federal Reserve’s policy meeting runs October 27 and 28, with the decision due Wednesday. The central bank has held its target range at 3.75% to 4% after raising it in September, and officials have signaled another increase may be needed by year-end. 

Market odds leaned toward a hold the last time they were clearly reported in early October, but those numbers are stale and likely have moved. Traders will watch Fed Chair Kevin Warsh’s press conference for hints about a December hike.

Bitcoin price logic amidst the midterms

The logic for Bitcoin is simple. Higher rates drain liquidity from speculative assets, so a hawkish surprise would likely push the price back toward $80,000 or below. 

A hold, or a softer tone, could give buyers room to push toward the $88,000 range seen earlier this fall. The November 3 midterm elections add another layer. Prediction markets have favored Democrats winning both chambers of Congress, according to one Polymarket reading cited in recent coverage. 

For crypto, the most immediate policy question is the pending market structure bill, and lawmakers’ votes on it could shape how the industry approaches the races. Bitcoin and other risk assets have tended to rally in the 12 months after past midterm cycles. 

TD Cowen analysts have warned the results could stall the CLARITY Act for two years. Prediction markets gave Democrats a 90% chance of winning the House and 62% of winning the Senate, a scenario TD Cowen called the most negative for bitcoin. 

A split Congress, with Republicans holding the Senate, was seen as better, while a Republican sweep was viewed as the best path for crypto. The bill had stalled after a failed Senate cloture vote in September, with ethics provisions and stablecoin yield still dividing lawmakers.

At the time of writing, the bitcoin price is roughly $80,600.

This post Bitcoin Price Rests Near $80,500 as Midterms, Fed Decision Loom first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

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VanEck Launches All-in-One Wealth Builder ETF With Bitcoin Exposure

VanEck launched the Wealth Builder ETF today, trading on the NYSE under the ticker WBMO. The actively managed fund packages the firm’s Wealth Builder model portfolios, which advisers have used through third-party platforms, into one product anyone with a brokerage account can buy. 

VanEck, which oversees about $244 billion in assets, selects the holdings, sets the weights and rebalances the portfolio.

VanEck describes the product as a way to “gain exposure to a broad mix of investments across stocks, bonds, gold, and bitcoin with a single ETF purchase.” The fund holds global stocks, bonds, gold and other real assets. 

Its bitcoin exposure is indirect. WBMO owns no bitcoin. A wholly owned Cayman Islands subsidiary holds certain investments and gains digital asset exposure through exchange-traded products, which are funds that hold bitcoin or track it. 

The subsidiary is generally capped at 25% of total assets at each quarter-end, but that limit covers several asset categories. The prospectus sets no specific bitcoin target. Investors do not need a wallet, seed phrase or exchange account to hold the bitcoin slice. They also cannot control the bitcoin position directly.

JUST IN: $200 billion VanEck includes Bitcoin exposure in their new Wealth Builder ETF

"This fund brings Bitcoin to investors who want one simple diversified holding" pic.twitter.com/dLhGu8VrWy

— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) October 27, 2026

Details of VanEck’s fund

The fund’s gross expense ratio is 0.33%. A 0.07% fee waiver brings the net ratio to 0.26%. The underlying bitcoin products charge their own fees.

The allocation also limits the swings. If bitcoin rises sharply, WBMO captures only part of the gain. If it falls, bonds and gold should cushion some of the loss, though not prevent it.

VanEck warned in its announcement that digital asset ETPs can be extremely volatile and that some are not registered under the Investment Company Act of 1940, which means they lack certain investor protections.

The firm’s other crypto-linked fund, NODE, raised its bitcoin ETP exposure from about 7% at the end of June to 16.8% at the end of September. NODE holds blockchain companies rather than WBMO’s mix, but it shows how VanEck is using crypto in its portfolios.

Earlier this fall, VanEck’s Head of Digital Assets Research, Matthew Sigel, said the Bitcoin community recognized the risks quantum computing posed to Bitcoin’s cryptography. 

“It’s a risk,” Sigel said at the time. “But the community has recognized the scope of the issue. There’s a lot of talent that’s now come together with a framework of how to upgrade the system…The upgrades don’t happen as fast because there’s no CEO who can tell the devs, ‘hey, do it now.’ There’s a governance process — it takes more time, it’s a little bit messier, but there are technological paths for quantum resistance, and I think you’ll see more of that over the next couple of years.”

Major companies, including Coinbase and Blockstream, had begun developing quantum-resistant security measures to prepare for future threats. 

A Bitcoin Security Consortium, including BlackRock, Fidelity Digital Assets, and Block, had also been formed to fund open-source security initiatives, including proposals such as BIP-360.

This post VanEck Launches All-in-One Wealth Builder ETF With Bitcoin Exposure first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

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27-Year-Old Missouri Man Admits Role in Failed Bitcoin Kidnapping Plot

A St. Louis man has admitted his part in a violent scheme to steal bitcoin from a Connecticut family. Martel Williams, 27, pleaded guilty Monday in federal court in Hartford to conspiracy to interfere with commerce by robbery, commonly called Hobbs Act robbery. 

The charge carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. U.S. Attorney David X. Sullivan announced the plea.

The plot began in August 2024. Prosecutors say the people coordinating the attack wanted bitcoin belonging to a man who had taken part in a theft worth hundreds of millions of dollars. To get it, they recruited Williams and two associates from St. Louis. 

The crew was supposed to force its way into the target’s home, threaten him, and demand that he move the cryptocurrency into accounts the conspirators controlled.

Williams and others traveled to Connecticut between August 21 and August 24, 2024. They rented vehicles and gathered supplies, including air rifles, walkie-talkies, and a laptop computer. For two days, they stalked the target and his parents, waiting for an opening to get inside the house.

Cameras, frustration, and a failed bitcoin break-in

The opening never came. Williams and his associates feared they had been captured on home security cameras. They also grew frustrated with the plan and with a lack of communication from their coordinators. They left Connecticut without carrying out the job.

Shortly afterward, a second crew of six men from Florida arrived to carry out the scheme again. On August 25, 2024, Danbury police arrested those six men after a violent carjacking. The men beat and kidnapped two people inside the vehicle. Those two victims were the parents of the target.

Local outlets have tied the target to a bitcoin theft in the range of $230 million to $245 million, though the exact figure varies from report to report. The federal case itself centers on the attempted robbery, not the original theft.

Federal agents arrested Williams on July 17, 2026. He remains free pending sentencing, and no sentencing date has been set. The FBI New Haven Violent Crimes Task Force, FBI Los Angeles, FBI St. Louis, and the Danbury Police Department investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Karen L. Peck and Stephanie T. Levick prosecuted it.

Other defendants in the Danbury case have also pleaded guilty, according to local reporting. 

Poetic bitcoin justice

Earlier this month, a scammer who had stolen about 60 bitcoin (roughly $4.8 million) through a fake-review task scam lost it all when thieves emptied three Ledger addresses where the scammer had moved the proceeds on October 9.

Blockchain analysts at Chainalysis said the transfers went into one wallet reported as stolen, while the wider Ledger incident, in which a criminal group allegedly implanted seed-phrase-reading devices sold through Malaysian reseller CryptoBilis, may have drained about $86 million. Ledger said it was working with law enforcement and has confirmed no other vendors were targeted, following a July attack on Coldcard that cost users close to $120 million through a firmware bug.

This post 27-Year-Old Missouri Man Admits Role in Failed Bitcoin Kidnapping Plot first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

CFTC Again Probes Polymarket Over Whether It Let Americans Trade

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is investigating whether Polymarket broke a 2022 enforcement settlement, according to Reuters reporting earlier today. The probe revives an inquiry the agency closed in 2025 without filing charges. For a platform that has tried to fit prediction markets inside US law, the question strikes at its core.

Polymarket settled with the CFTC in January 2022 and paid a $1.4 million penalty for offering event-based binary options without registration. The company agreed to block American users from its offshore exchange. Geofencing tools followed, but regulators and critics pointed to traders who reached the site through VPNs. The platform has also courted crypto natives, adding bitcoin deposits in October 2025 as part of a broader push to fund accounts with digital assets. 

According to the sources, investigators are examining three areas: the adequacy of Polymarket’s location controls, its advertising inside the United States, and the onboarding and customer protections on its US platform, which launched late last year. 

The company is headquartered in New York and runs its offshore exchange through a Panama-registered entity. A probe is an inquiry, not a finding, and many investigations end without enforcement. 

Polymarket’s mounting regulatory scrutiny

The inquiry sits inside a wider effort. In June, the Wall Street Journal reported that Polymarket paid individuals to produce videos of fictitious winning bets, and senators Adam Schiff and John Curtis urged the agency to open a probe. Bloomberg reported that investigators were examining the company’s social media activity.

CFTC Chairman Michael Selig has framed prediction markets as tools for hedging and information discovery, and he has argued that federal regulators, not states, should oversee them. Enforcement director David Miller has pledged tough policing of the sector.

Enforcement pressure has a test case. In April, prosecutors charged a US soldier, Gannon Ken Van Dyke, with making $400,000 from insider bets on the offshore platform. The indictment says he used a VPN and an “exit mode” that appeared to sit in a foreign country. Van Dyke has denied the charges, and Polymarket says it referred the matter to authorities.

Scale raises the stakes. Intercontinental Exchange, the parent of the NYSE, agreed in October 2025 to invest roughly $2 billion, and Bloomberg counted founder Shayne Coplan, 27, among the youngest self-made billionaires. The bigger the platform, the more its geographic walls matter.

Earlier this year, Polymarket’s five-minute Bitcoin up/down contract was exploited by a small group of traders who pushed Binance’s price in the final seconds before each close, according to a study. Just 821 wallets, about one in 300 traders, took $8.2 million in the pushed cycles, and 93% of the losses fell on retail bettors. 

The authors of the study found no manipulation in the fifteen-minute contract, since a longer window dilutes a fixed push, a lesson that matters now that Nasdaq and Cboe have filed to list similar binary contracts on equity indices.

This post CFTC Again Probes Polymarket Over Whether It Let Americans Trade first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

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Next Week’s Midterms Could Stall the CLARITY Act and Test Crypto’s Political Clout: TD Cowen 

Washington’s crypto agenda hinges on next week’s midterm elections, according to a new policy note from TD Cowen, shared with Bitcoin Magazine. 

Analyst Jaret Seiberg warned in the note that the probable results could make it difficult for Congress to pass the CLARITY Act over the next two years. The bill would set the rules for bitcoin and other digital assets, and the industry has spent $176 million on more than 100 races to shape the outcome. Here are a couple of the results:

A Democratic sweep is the most probable outcome

Prediction markets cited in the report give Democrats a 90% chance of winning the House and a 62% chance of winning the Senate. TD Cowen considers this the most negative scenario for bitcoin and the broader crypto sector. Under it, Sen. Elizabeth Warren would become Senate Banking Committee chair. Seiberg describes her as a crypto skeptic who has led opposition to the CLARITY Act, and he expects her to conduct tough oversight of federal regulators.

Warren cannot stop regulators from adopting policies that favor the industry. Seiberg expects President Trump to remain favorable toward crypto, so he would veto any bill that limits his regulators’ authority. Democrats would lack the votes to override him. As a result, policy changes are expected to focus on tokenization, perpetual futures, and stablecoins.

A split Congress with Republicans holding the Senate

The second scenario keeps Democrats in control of the House while key Senate races stay close enough to break for Republicans. Sen. Tim Scott would keep his Banking Committee gavel. TD Cowen views this outcome as a better result for bitcoin, because Rep. Maxine Waters could trade support for parts of the market structure bill in exchange for investor protections and action on her other priorities. 

Adverse legislation would be blocked from reaching the president’s desk.

A Republican sweep is the least likely but best outcome for crypto

Kalshi gives Republicans a 10% chance to keep the House and a 35% chance to keep the Senate. TD Cowen calls this the best path for crypto policy, though the margins matter. A wider Senate majority would improve the odds that leaders advance the CLARITY Act in 2027 or 2028, and they could attempt a revival during the lame-duck session. 

A narrow majority, by contrast, would leave the bill stalled, as Democrats keep pushing ethics provisions that the president opposes. When the Senate blocked the bill, Bitcoin-related stocks tumbled.

For background, the CLARITY Act would create federal rules for digital assets. The House passed its version in July 2025 by a 294-134 vote. The Senate Banking Committee approved its own version in May 2026 by a 15-9 vote, with two Democrats joining Republicans.

On the Senate floor, a cloture vote failed 49-50 on September 15. Democrats want ethics language that would bar senior officials, including the president, from profiting from crypto ventures. Republicans and industry groups resist those limits. Stablecoin yield is another dispute. Each side says the other is blocking progress, and the bill is stuck.

This post Next Week’s Midterms Could Stall the CLARITY Act and Test Crypto’s Political Clout: TD Cowen  first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

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SoFi Stock (SOFI) Soars 15% on Record Quarter, Crypto Reaches 503,000 Products

SoFi Technologies reported record third-quarter 2026 results earlier Tuesday, and its crypto business reached 503,070 products by quarter-end. At the time of writing, SoFi shares were up 14.59% on the day at $16.56. 

The lender raised full-year guidance at the same time. SoFi returned to crypto investing in the fourth quarter of 2025, when it became the first U.S. nationally chartered bank to offer retail crypto trading.

That said, crypto remains a small line in the results. Crypto transaction revenue totaled $161.6 million in the quarter, but the cost of that revenue reached $160.0 million. Net crypto transaction revenue was $1.6 million, equal to 0.1% of total net revenue. 

SoFi earns a fee on each buy and sell order, while the bulk of gross volume flows through as cost. For the first nine months of 2026, net crypto transaction revenue totaled $3.7 million on $417.5 million in gross revenue.

Per the company, member trading picked up in September. Members placed 218,469 trades, a 14% increase from August’s 191,359. Buy trades rose 18% to 133,937, and sell trades rose 8% to 84,532. Buy volume reached $33.8 million, and sell volume reached $39.1 million. 

Members placed 25 trades of $100,000 or more. Bitcoin led trading volume with a 39% share. New traders drove much of the activity. 44% of September traders made their first-ever trade that month, 20% had traded before but not in August, and 36% traded in both months.

SoFi Crypto skews younger. 43% of members are millennials, the company said, born between 1981 and 1996, and the median member age is 36. On the stablecoin side, SoFi became the first national bank to go live with stablecoin settlement across Mastercard’s global payments network. 

SoFi’s monster quarter

Outside of crypto and broadly speaking, SoFi beat Wall Street expectations for the third quarter of this year. The company earned $0.18 per share on an adjusted basis, topping the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $0.17 and rising from $0.11 a year earlier. Revenue reached $1.37 billion, 9.08% above consensus and up from $949.63 million a year ago. 

SoFi has beaten consensus EPS estimates three times over the last four quarters and topped revenue estimates in all four. Shares have fallen 44.8% this year, while the S&P 500 gained 12.1%. 

Zacks currently rates the stock Rank #3 (Hold), which signals performance in line with the market. Analysts expect $0.20 per share on $1.32 billion in revenue next quarter and $0.60 per share on $4.87 billion for the full year. 

Founded as a student loan refinancing startup, SoFi has evolved into a full-scale financial services platform offering products ranging from IPO investing to credit cards and high-yield savings accounts. SoFi has a market cap of $21.5 billion. 

This post SoFi Stock (SOFI) Soars 15% on Record Quarter, Crypto Reaches 503,000 Products first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

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Crypto Midterm Election Spending Reaches $176 Million as Industry Builds for the Next Congress

The crypto industry has spent about $176 million across more than 100 midterm races this cycle, according to a Reuters review of campaign spending. The money is part of a plan to build a bipartisan coalition in Congress that can protect the sector after President Donald Trump leaves office.

Fairshake, the industry’s largest super PAC, leads the effort. The group spent $196 million in the 2024 cycle and is directing strategy again. Through October 20, Fairshake and its affiliate PACs had spent about $150.8 million this year, while other crypto groups spent around $25 million. Fairshake said 53 of the 58 candidates it backed in primaries or special elections won, and those candidates will be on the November 3 ballot, per Reuters. 

Super PACs can raise and spend unlimited sums but cannot coordinate with campaigns. Fairshake’s ads run through affiliates with names such as “Defend American Jobs” and “Protect Progress,” and they often focus on taxes and immigration rather than crypto. Voters have little way of knowing who pays for them. 

The watchdog group Public Citizen said crypto was the largest corporate spender in federal races in 2026. Crypto firms led corporate political spending at that point, citing the same watchdog’s analysis.

Coinbase, Ripple and Andreessen Horowitz are the primary financiers. Industry strategists and campaign staff said the money is a calling card meant to build relationships with elected officials. 

Crypto’s long game in Congress

Colin McLaren, head of government relations at the Solana Policy Institute, which has given $4.9 million to the midterms, called it “an investment in the future,” per Reuters.

The approach reflects a sharp change. In 2018, lawmakers could not secure a room in the House or Senate office buildings for the first bipartisan crypto roundtable, so they met at the Library of Congress. Then, under the Biden administration, the Securities and Exchange Commission levied more than $6 billion in penalties across 98 cases, according to a Georgetown University Law study. 

Executives concluded they needed political force. Coinbase Chief Policy Officer Faryar Shirzad helped launch Stand With Crypto and Fairshake in 2023. The number of lawmakers rated “A” by Stand With Crypto rose to 332 from 96 when the group launched.

Legislation followed. The GENIUS Act, enacted in 2025 with broad bipartisan support, created the first federal regulatory framework for stablecoins. The industry’s next goal, the Clarity Act, would place oversight under the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. That bill stalled this session. Senate Democrats blocked it from reaching a final vote over an ethics provision that would have forced the Trump family to sell its crypto holdings. 

Fairshake helped defeat Sherrod Brown, who chaired the Senate Banking Committee, in 2024, and the industry has since spent more than $68 million on his rematch against Republican Jon Husted, according to AdImpact. 

Fairshake’s ads against Brown do not mention crypto, and Brown’s campaign manager, Patrick Eisenhauer, said “the special interests are panicking.” In Illinois, Fairshake spent over $10.1 million attacking Lieutenant Governor Juliana Stratton and $2.5 million against state Representative La Shawn Ford, per Reuters, yet both are expected to win on November 3. 

Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss each gave about $13 million this cycle, most of it to MAGA Inc.

What voters think

Public attitudes are mixed. A September survey seen by Bitcoin Magazine of 1,545 U.S. adults by Ipsos for the DeFi Education Fund found that 22% have owned or used crypto, up from 18% in 2025. Only 19% believe the U.S. financial system is secure. 

The survey also found 35% say it is important for candidates to support building the next generation of financial technology in the United States. Only 13% said the same when the question named blockchain, crypto or DeFi. The DeFi Education Fund is a digital asset advocacy group, so its framing reflects that perspective. 

Stand With Crypto’s leadership has argued that the crypto vote will decide the midterms.

This post Crypto Midterm Election Spending Reaches $176 Million as Industry Builds for the Next Congress first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

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Bitcoin Mining Firm Luxor Raises $16 Million to Scale AI Compute Trading and Hardware

Seattle-based Luxor Technology Corporation announced a $16 million strategic investment round on Tuesday. CMT Digital, the venture capital arm of Chicago-based CMT Group, led the round. Canaan, MicroBT, Halo, Steelhead, and angel investors also participated. 

The round includes both primary and secondary capital. Luxor describes each investor as an operating partner in the compute supply chain it serves, spanning hardware, capital, and power.

The raise follows the September launch of Luxor AI, a business segment that extends the energy, hardware, software, compute trading, and data stack Luxor built for bitcoin mining into artificial intelligence and high-performance computing. 

Luxor said its hardware brokerage desk has traded $1 billion of ASIC hardware for bitcoin mining. Its energy arm services more than 75 megawatts of load across ERCOT and SPP. Its agentic cloud platform had reached 1.8 million workloads year to date as of September.

The firm plans to use the new capital in four areas: scaling its agentic cloud platform, providing working capital for its AI hardware business, expanding its compute derivative trading and market making, and hiring engineering and go-to-market staff.

The hardware push responds to tightening supply chains. The firm’s AI hardware desk sources GPUs and AI servers through a tiered network of partners. As a Value-Added Reseller to major OEMs, the company says it can access abandoned orders, special allocations, and used markets.

Luxor and AI compute

CMT Digital brings nearly three decades of electronic trading and market-structure experience. Sam Hallene, a partner at CMT Digital, said Luxor understands the energy and infrastructure landscape behind compute, as well as the financial tools customers need to manage risk. He said the team has built that skill over eight years in digital assets and is applying it to AI.

Luxor’s over-the-counter desk already offers cash-settled options, forwards, and backstops on compute-rental indexes. CMT’s backing, the company says, positions Luxor to scale that business as AI compute becomes a tradable market.

Canaan CEO Nangeng Zhang said his company is pursuing long-term power resources in North America as part of its compute-plus-energy strategy, and that joining Luxor’s cap table aligns with those goals. He called the company an important partner across bitcoin mining and the energy industry.

Nick Hansen, Luxor’s CEO and co-founder, summed up the thesis: “Compute markets are converging: the same miners, power sites and capital that served digital mining are now powering AI.”

Earlier this year, the company unveiled Commander, a fleet management platform designed to help Bitcoin mining operators monitor operations, manage energy use, and optimize profitability from a single system. 

Integrated with existing infrastructure, the platform offers real-time fleet monitoring, remote machine controls, and tools that help miners adjust to changing hashrate and electricity market conditions.

Public bitcoin miners had signed more than $70 billion in AI and high-performance computing contracts by the end of March, according to CoinShares data. 

This post Bitcoin Mining Firm Luxor Raises $16 Million to Scale AI Compute Trading and Hardware first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Cold Storage Goes South: bitcoin++ Announces Antarctica Edition

Bitcoin developers have gathered all around the world in places like Austin, Berlin, and Florianópolis, to name a few. In early 2028, a group of them plans to meet at the bottom of the world. bitcoin++ has announced Antarctica: Cold Storage Edition, scheduled for January 24 to February 5, 2028. There are only 22 spots available.

The event pairs a technical conference with an expedition ship that departs from Ushuaia, Argentina, crosses the Drake Passage, explores the Antarctic Peninsula, and returns to Ushuaia.

The event plays on bitcoin’s cold storage, the practice of keeping keys offline. The organizers describe the trip as a way to take the conversation somewhere colder, with room for discussions that would otherwise fit into a hallway.

bitcoin++ runs technical conferences, workshops, and hackathons for bitcoin developers. The series began in Austin in 2022 and has since held events in Berlin, Florianópolis, Buenos Aires, Mexico City, Riga, Istanbul, Taipei, Las Vegas, Vienna, Nairobi, Toronto, and Seoul. Each edition carries a theme, from “learn me a bitcoin” in Austin in 2022 to “lightning” in Berlin in 2025. 

The organization counts some 20 archived editions. Its next conference, bitcoin++ Seoul, privacy edition, takes place November 5 and 6, 2026.

Penguins, parkas, and private keys

The trip runs 13 days and 12 nights. The ship leaves Ushuaia on January 24 and crosses the Drake Passage to the western coast of the Antarctic Peninsula. Possible stops include Neko Harbour, Paradise Bay, Port Lockroy, and the Lemaire Channel. 

According to the trip’s website, activities may include kayaking, camping, hiking, snowshoeing, and Zodiac outings. The organizers note that weather, ice, and expedition decisions determine where the ship lands.

The conference follows an unconference format. Attendees propose the talks, demos, and discussions. The ship will have Starlink and a private room for impromptu hackathons and working sessions.

Cost and booking

Reservations are open right now. Fares are quoted in US dollars per person and range from $14,900 in a four-person cabin to $16,700 in a two-person cabin. Passengers may pay in five equal installments or pay in full at signup. Paying the full fare in bitcoin reduces the cost by 5%. The cost of the fare includes parkas.

The final payment is due October 1, 2027. Medical, evacuation, and repatriation insurance is required and purchased separately. Sponsors can place their brands on the expedition parkas. Placements range from $5,000 to $25,000, and each covers about 22 parkas.

The expedition explores the Antarctic Peninsula, not the geographic South Pole.

This post Cold Storage Goes South: bitcoin++ Announces Antarctica Edition first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

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Bitcoin Price Hovers Near $80,000 as Traders Await Fed Decision

Bitcoin price traded near $80,000 on Monday, after falling about 2% earlier in the session. The price has dipped below that level several times in recent days and recovered each time.

Selling pressure has been building. Spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded about $635 million in outflows on October 22. A brief drop below $80,000 last week also triggered roughly $800 million in liquidations of long positions, or bets that prices would rise.

The next major test to look out for is the Federal Reserve’s two-day meeting, which ends October 28. The Fed raised its target range to 3.75% to 4% in September, and its minutes suggested another increase could come by year-end. 

Most recent market odds favor the Fed holding rates steady, though those odds have shifted. Traders are watching Fed Chair Kevin Warsh’s remarks for signs of a December hike.

Higher interest rates typically pull money away from risky assets, including crypto. Broadly speaking, a hold could keep bitcoin price between roughly $80,000 and $88,000. A rate hike could push it toward the lower end of that range.

Bitcoin price backdrop

Geopolitical tensions are also weighing on markets. Oil rose above $100 a barrel in early September as strikes between the U.S. and Iran escalated. Higher energy prices feed into inflation, which affects the Fed’s decisions. 

In tech, Anthropic is reportedly preparing an initial public offering that could value the AI company near $965 billion. The timing has shifted toward the weeks before the November midterm elections, but no date has been confirmed. 

U.S. stocks surged a bit Monday as investors geared up for a busy week of Big Tech earnings and the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate decision. The Nasdaq rose 0.8%, the S&P 500 gained 0.6%, and the Dow climbed 0.3%. 

Alphabet and Microsoft report Wednesday, followed by Amazon Thursday, while markets largely expect the Fed to hold rates steady. 

AI-related stocks rallied following Anthropic’s IPO filing. Tesla jumped 6%, while Meta plans to raise up to $95 billion for AI investments. 

As of writing, bitcoin price trades at $80,215, down nearly $4,000 or 4.75%, on the month. Over the past month, prices have ranged from a high of $86,806.95 to a low of $79,397.76. Bitcoin price peaked above $86,000 in early October, then slid toward $80,000 in the second week of the month. 

A brief rally around October 21 pushed it back near $84,000, but those gains faded within days. Trading volume over the past 24 hours reached about $18.12 billion. 

Bitcoin price remains far below its all-time high of $126,277.05.

This post Bitcoin Price Hovers Near $80,000 as Traders Await Fed Decision first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

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Strategy (MSTR) Pauses Bitcoin Buying and Spends $205 Million on Preferred Stock

Strategy reported no bitcoin purchases or sales during the week of October 19 through 25. The company continues to hold 848,517 BTC, acquired for $64.02 billion at an average price of $75,446 per bitcoin. 

Its cash went toward repurchasing $204.9 million of STRC preferred stock, and the firm kept a $4.83 billion cash reserve, according to a company release. 

Michael Saylor’s company built its treasury into the largest corporate bitcoin holdings in the world through stock sales and convertible debt, using the proceeds to buy coins. That pattern has changed somewhat this year. The company has paused purchases several times and directed money toward buybacks of its preferred shares.

The company has had stints of pauses, from a week when the company halted its bitcoin buys to a stretch in which it sold bitcoin after five weeks without buying.

In September, the company repurchased $176 million of STRC in one week and expanded its digital credit securities repurchase program from $1 billion to $2 billion.

Strategy’s preferred dividend

STRC is a preferred stock with a variable dividend, designed to trade near its $100 face value. When the shares fall below that level, as they have during recent market swings, buying them back shrinks the preferred claim. Retiring $100 of stated value for $86.52 cuts the claim by a larger amount than the cash spent, which lifts net bitcoin per share.

Bitcoin traded near $80,000 on Monday, October 26, after slipping below that level in early Asian hours. A weekend selloff pushed the price to the low $79,000’s, a level not seen in over a month.

Strategy’s average cost of $75,446 sits below that price, so the company’s holdings show a paper gain of around $3.9 billion. The $4.83 billion reserve covers preferred dividends and debt interest, according to company reporting. 

Strategy’s buyback capacity depends on preferred stock trading below par and on cash from common stock sales, a funding mix that has shifted toward stock sales this year. 

The company has offered no timetable for resuming bitcoin buys.

This post Strategy (MSTR) Pauses Bitcoin Buying and Spends $205 Million on Preferred Stock first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

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Bitcoin’s Bear Market Is Over, Galaxy Says

Galaxy Research believes bitcoin’s bear market ended in June and that the asset has entered an accumulation phase, according to a research alert from the firm.  “We believe now is an attractive time to buy and hold bitcoin,” the report said.

Bitcoin traded near $80,000 at the time of the note, about 35% below its October 2025 high and 39% above the June 30 low. The price would need to rise 53% to retake the previous record. The S&P 500, by comparison, sits within 1% of a record set on Oct. 6.

The report lays out four arguments: technical, positioning, fundamental and sentiment.

Bitcoin technicals

Galaxy uses two weekly moving averages to track bitcoin’s bear markets. The 200-week average has acted as a floor in each one, and the 50-week average has acted as a ceiling, according to the firm.

Bitcoin lost the 50-week average in November 2025 and stayed below it for 44 weeks. The June low tested the 200-week average and held, with the worst weekly close coming 4.7% beneath it. Price closed back above the 50-week average in September, and the week ended Oct. 18 was the fifth consecutive weekly close above that level.

Galaxy counted 13 such reclaims since 2011 and said the outcome depended on how long price had spent below the line. The four reclaims that ended spells of 20 weeks or more were higher a year later, by between 55% and 1,497%, and none closed more than 8.4% below the reclaim level in the following 12 months. Of the nine that ended shorter spells, seven fell more than 25% within a year.

The firm said the halving cycle supports the same conclusion. Prior cycles bottomed on days 777, 889 and 912 after their halvings. Oct. 22 was day 916 of the current cycle. Galaxy said the gains that followed those lows (87x, 19x and 7.6x) have shrunk each cycle and that it does not forecast a repeat.

The current drawdown of 53% is the shallowest in bitcoin’s history, the report said, and the first in which price did not fall below the network’s realized cost basis.

Positioning

The report identified basis traders and macro funds as the main sellers since the top. Asset managers’ net long position in CME bitcoin futures fell 57% from the week of the all-time high, according to Commodity Futures Trading Commission data cited by Galaxy. 

Leveraged funds’ net short position, which represents the futures side of the cash-and-carry trade against spot ETFs, shrank by a similar amount. The front-month basis averaged 7.9% annualized in the 30 days before the high and 4.8% in the 30 days to Oct. 21, which the firm said no longer covers the trade’s costs and risk.

Galaxy pointed to 13F filings to identify the sellers. Millennium Management, Brevan Howard, Goldman Sachs, Capula, Farallon, D. E. Shaw, Schonfeld, Symmetry and Tudor cut their spot ETF holdings by between 29% and 100% between the September 2025 and June 2026 quarter-ends, a combined 68,000 BTC. 

Because total holdings across all 2,200 filers fell by 48,000 BTC, the remaining institutions added in aggregate. Morgan Stanley’s wealth management arm, Mubadala and the Abu Dhabi Investment Council were among the buyers.

Spot ETF holdings dropped 11% from peak to trough while price fell 53%, and the funds have added 87,000 BTC since the June low, the report said.

Fundamentals and sentiment

Galaxy’s fundamental case centers on U.S. fiscal conditions. Federal debt reached $40.44 trillion on Oct. 20, fiscal 2026 ended with a $1.99 trillion deficit, and the 10-year Treasury yield hit 5.31% on Oct. 5, its highest since 2007. 

The firm argued that a government refinancing that debt at 5% while running 6% deficits faces pressure to inflate.

The report described AI-related borrowing, which Morgan Stanley expects to reach $570 billion this year, as a contributor to that pressure rather than a competitor for capital.

On sentiment, Galaxy compared the current environment to 2015–16 and 2018–19, when mainstream finance embraced “blockchain” and dismissed bitcoin. Both periods coincided with cycle lows. The firm said the 2026 version is “stablecoins and tokenization, not bitcoin,” citing bank pilots of tokenized deposits, the Senate’s failed cloture vote on the Clarity Act on Sept. 15, and Google searches for “bitcoin” at multiyear lows.

Risks

Galaxy set a tripwire for its view: a weekly close below the 50-week average, about $76,540, that is not regained within a month. It cited AI-enabled theft, including the $387.5 million Bitget exploit, while noting none of the incidents involved the Bitcoin protocol itself.

On quantum computing, the report said 7.1 million BTC sit in outputs with exposed public keys but that no cryptographically relevant quantum computer exists. It pointed to BIP-360’s merge into the BIP repository in February and Galaxy’s own $5 million quantum readiness commitment.

This post Bitcoin’s Bear Market Is Over, Galaxy Says first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

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South Korea Weighs Fourth Delay of Crypto Tax, With 2029 Start Tied to U.S. Data Sharing

South Korea’s presidential office is reviewing a fourth postponement of the country’s 22% tax on crypto gains, with a 2029 start date gaining support among lawmakers and industry groups.

The tax is scheduled to take effect January 1, 2027. The presidential office said it is in talks with government agencies about a delay, citing gaps in the regulatory framework and the problem of treating domestic and overseas trades the same way, according to Newsis reporting.

The levy dates to a 2020 amendment to the Income Tax Act. It applies a 20% national rate plus a 2% local rate to annual income from the transfer or lending of virtual assets above a 2.5 million won ($1,888) deduction. The start date was set for 2022, then pushed to 2023, 2025 and 2027 as officials conceded that tax systems and investor protections were not ready.

The U.S. data problem

The argument for 2029 rests on the OECD’s Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework, the standard under which tax authorities swap crypto transaction records with one another. South Korea is among the first group of jurisdictions set to begin exchanges in 2027. The United States does not join until 2029.

A presidential office official told Newsis that the absence of U.S. trading data is the biggest bottleneck. Without it, the National Tax Service would have to chase overseas transactions one by one, and Korean traders on domestic exchanges would carry a heavier burden than those on foreign platforms or in self-custody.

On October 16, Democratic Party lawmaker Park Min-gyu and 13 colleagues filed a bill that would push the tax to January 1 of the second year after the first international data exchange, which works out to 2029. People Power Party lawmaker Song Eon-seok filed a separate bill to strike the crypto tax provisions from the law.

The Korea Digital Asset Business Association backed the 2029 date Thursday and asked the government to pass a digital asset law with stock-market-grade investor protections before any tax takes effect.

A tax fight that has been building

The pressure has come from several directions at once. Last week, two public petitions, one to repeal the tax and one to defer it two years, each cleared the 50,000 signatures that force a legislative review. Democratic Party leader Kim Min-seok called for a “thorough final review,” a shift for a party that had held the line on 2027.

Finance Minister Lee Hyeong-il told a parliamentary audit Thursday the government would decide “after carefully considering and gathering all opinions from the industry and the National Assembly.” Financial Services Commission chairman Lee Eog-weon said the same day that the tax should “take various circumstances into full consideration.”

The Virtual Asset User Protection Act took effect in July 2024, but the Digital Asset Basic Act, the licensing framework flagged alongside spot bitcoin ETF approval, has not passed. Lawmakers have questioned taxing a market before the law defining it exists.

The National Tax Service has not slowed down. It plans to publish a draft notice on taxable crypto income by the end of October. The government expects to settle its position through inter-agency talks after audits wrap, with a decision through National Assembly tax revisions between late November and early December.

This post South Korea Weighs Fourth Delay of Crypto Tax, With 2029 Start Tied to U.S. Data Sharing first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

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Strive Buys 6,182 Bitcoin For $511 Million, Lines Up $1 Billion ATM To Buy More

Strive, Inc. (ASST) acquired 6,182 bitcoin for $511.4 million between October 17 and October 23, according to an SEC filing published on Monday. The company paid an average price of $82,732 per bitcoin.

The purchase lifts Strive’s holdings to 43,000 BTC. Cash and marketable securities rose by $187.7 million to $554.6 million over the same period.

The buy comes one week after Strive closed its upsized initial public offering of SATS, its 15% Perpetual Series A Preferred Stock. The company sold 7 million shares at $90 each for $630 million in gross proceeds. Dividends accrue at 15% on a $100 stated amount, which works out to a 16.67% yield at the issue price. Payments, if declared by the board, start November 9 and land on each business day.

Strive opened the SATS offering with a $500 million target and raised the size by 2 million shares on demand. The stock trades on the Nasdaq. The company has set aside a $157.5 million dividend reserve, which covers 18 months of payments on the new shares.

JUST IN: Public company Strive purchases 6,182 Bitcoin for $511.4 million! pic.twitter.com/5KImRceLzA

— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) October 26, 2026

A $1 billion ATM for SATS

The filing disclosed a new at-the-market program under which the company can sell up to $1 billion of SATS over time. Cantor Fitzgerald, Barclays, Clear Street, StoneX, B. Riley Securities, Maxim Group and H.C. Wainwright serve as sales agents.

The structure mirrors the one Strive built for SATA, its first preferred stock, which carries a variable dividend and pays cash each business day. Strive set up a $500 million ATM for SATA in December 2025. That vehicle absorbed more than the entire daily bitcoin mining supply on a single day in May.

Under the SATS program, Strive can issue preferred shares when demand supports the price and route the proceeds into bitcoin. The company has said proceeds may fund bitcoin purchases, income-generating assets, working capital, buybacks or acquisitions.

Strive’s climb up the treasury rankings

Strive went public as a bitcoin treasury company in 2025 through a reverse merger and completed its all-stock acquisition of Semler Scientific in January, the first case of one public bitcoin treasury buying another. Holdings stood near 7,525 BTC in December 2025. The figure has since grown to more than five times that amount.

The company reported 36,818 BTC on October 20 after a purchase of 4,045 BTC between October 12 and 16. Monday’s filing adds 6,182 BTC to that total.

Strive funds its purchases through common and preferred equity and carries no debt: no bonds, no credit lines and no leveraged positions. 

Chairman and CEO Matt Cole called the SATS IPO “a critical milestone in our strategy to maximize long-term total returns for our common equity investors.”

Strategy, the largest corporate holder with 848,517 BTC, proposed daily dividends across its five preferred stocks in September.

This post Strive Buys 6,182 Bitcoin For $511 Million, Lines Up $1 Billion ATM To Buy More first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.