Crypto

Shiba Inu, one of the largest meme coins in the crypto space, has gone live on Solana through Sunrise, giving Solana market access to the Ethereum token's canonical form. The move brings SHIB onto the Solana network via the Sunrise integration. The listing provides Solana market participants with access to the canonical form of the Ethereum-based token.

Starknet's STRK token extended its rally Sunday, rising about 16% as a burst of speculative trading added momentum to the blockchain network's push to attract Bitcoin holders. STRK climbed from roughly $0.044 to $0.057 in the past 24 hours, after jumping about 26% Saturday, and by 12:08 p.m. ET Sunday CoinGecko showed more than $240 million in 24-hour volume and a market capitalization of about $427 million. The token has gained more than 35% in the past week and more than doubled in the past month. The rally accelerated Saturday after a crypto trader using the name Pumponomics posted a bullish STRK thesis on X at about 10:33 a.m. ET, saying he had accumulated about $740,000 of the token during the week, and on-chain data showed a wallet receiving about 17.44 million STRK from Coinbase Prime minutes before the post. Futures trading also surged, with volume rising about 213% to $187.7 million and open interest climbing about 20% to $74.2 million Saturday. The speculative activity followed an Oct. 2 announcement from Starknet that it would cover bridge fees for the first 100 Bitcoin moved onto its network through strkBTC, a Bitcoin-backed token that lets holders use their Bitcoin in applications on Starknet, with staking through Endur paying rewards in STRK at an annual percentage yield of about 3%. A further potential catalyst is approaching Monday, when Starknet v0.14.4 is scheduled for mainnet deployment Oct. 5, pending governance approval.

Strategy founder and chairman Michael Saylor published data on the company's Bitcoin strategy with the concise comment: "More orange than ever." The post, which appeared on the company formerly known as MicroStrategy, signals a potential massive new Bitcoin purchase by the firm. Saylor's terse remark accompanied the release of the company's Bitcoin strategy data, though no specific purchase amount or dollar figure was disclosed in the source material. The comment echoes Saylor's long-running practice of teasing Strategy's Bitcoin acquisitions ahead of official announcements.

CoinDesk reported on October 3 that CryptoJobsList, a recruitment site specializing in crypto assets, saw 1,241 job postings in September, more than tripling from 382 in July. Postings rose from 382 in July to 886 in August and reached 1,241 in September, far exceeding the 573 in January, the highest of the first half of the year. The number of companies that posted jobs in September reached 125. Meanwhile, applications have declined since July, totaling only about 20,000 in September, and the site points to the possibility that competition among companies to secure specialized talent is intensifying. In a report released on October 2, CryptoJobsList cited growing interest from institutional investors, partnerships with existing financial institutions, and new venture investment as reasons behind the hiring recovery. Over the past three months, finance was the most common category for job postings, followed by technology development and trading, while stablecoins, artificial intelligence, security, and regulatory compliance also ranked in the top 10.

Stellar took in $36.4 million of the $96.5 million that flowed into real-world asset tokenization across the top 10 blockchain networks over the past 24 hours, according to RWA Foundation citing Token Terminal. That single-network share amounts to more than a third, or 37%, of the total 24-hour inflow into the top 10 networks. The figures cover only the top 10 blockchain networks by RWA tokenization market capitalization, which rose by $96.5 million in the period.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday approved a Cboe BZX rule change allowing the exchange to list six triple-leveraged exchange-traded products from Volatility Shares, a first-of-its-kind step that could expand leveraged exposure to the world's largest cryptocurrency. The products target three times the daily performance of bitcoin, ether, gold, silver, crude oil and natural gas, with the bitcoin and ether products providing leveraged exposure through futures rather than directly holding the cryptocurrencies. The decision does not mean the products are immediately available for trading, as registration requirements must still be completed before shares can be publicly offered. Bitcoin traded at $84,860.5 as of 01:29 ET, little changed over the past 24 hours, after briefly climbing above $87,000 earlier in the week. The approval adds another potential route for investors seeking cryptocurrency exposure after the SEC separately proposed changes to crypto custody rules this week, a proposal that was a major focus for Bitcoin markets on Friday.

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation announced the DTCC tokenization service on May 4, 2026, a platform designed to bring Russell 1000 components, ETFs, and US Treasuries onto distributed ledgers. With over 50 firms including BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Circle, Ondo, and Nasdaq participating, the service moved into limited production in July 2026 following a December 2025 SEC No-Action Letter. DTCC CEO Frank La Salla said tokenization will significantly change how markets operate by bringing new levels of liquidity, transparency, and efficiency to investors, while Brian Steele of the DTCC added that the service is designed to provide systemic scale where deep liquidity already lives. The infrastructure shift extends beyond the DTCC: Nasdaq secured SEC approval on March 18, 2026, under Release 34-105047, to facilitate tokenized settlement on the same order book, ticker, and CUSIP as traditional assets, NYSE Arca followed with rule change SR-NYSEARCA-2026-45 effective April 29, 2026, and the broader NYSE received approval for its own related filings on April 17, 2026. The SEC issued a five-year conditional innovation exemption on September 17, 2026, specifically for tokenized NMS stocks, while the CFTC clarified through Staff Letter 25-39 and an updated FAQ on September 24, 2026, that tokenized collateral may be used for derivatives margin. The tokenized asset market tracked by rwa.xyz stood at approximately $38.6 billion as of late September 2026, up from $2 billion in 2022, with tokenized Treasuries accounting for $14.7 billion to $15.65 billion of that total, led by BlackRock's BUIDL at $2.70 billion, Circle's USYC at $2.60 billion, and Ondo's USDY at $2.23 billion. A June 1, 2026, Citi report estimates a base case of $5.5 trillion in tokenized assets and $1.9 trillion in stablecoins by 2030, though it warns of a messy period in which tokenized and legacy systems operate side by side.

Citi announced an expanded collaboration with Coinbase to power Coinbase Virtual Accounts and enable institutional stablecoin payment acceptance via Spring by Citi, initially in the United States. The collaboration links Coinbase's digital asset infrastructure with Citi's regulated banking network and creates an industry-first automatic fiat-to-stablecoin conversion feature. Coinbase Global also reported that Chief Accounting Officer Jennifer Jones plans to retire after a successor is appointed. The company's narrative projects $8.5 billion revenue and $2.1 billion earnings by 2028, requiring 8.3% yearly revenue growth and a $0.8 billion earnings decrease from $2.9 billion today, with a $383.46 fair value implying 110% upside to its current price. Some of the most optimistic analysts already expected Coinbase to reach about US$9.3 billion of revenue and US$2.2 billion of earnings.

SoFi Technologies and Mastercard announced that stablecoin settlement went live across SoFi Bank, N.A.'s debit and credit card program, migrating its entire US$25.00 billion card portfolio to SoFiUSD. SoFiUSD is the first stablecoin issued by a nationally chartered bank on Mastercard's global network, positioning bank-issued stablecoins as an operational bridge between traditional payment rails and blockchain infrastructure. The move connects to SoFi's April 2026 launch of Big Business Banking, which lets enterprises manage fiat and crypto, mint and burn SoFiUSD, and access real time payments in a single bank interface. SoFi's narrative projects $7.7 billion revenue and $1.6 billion earnings by 2029, requiring 21.6% yearly revenue growth and an earnings increase of about $1.0 billion from $636.3 million today, while the most pessimistic analysts saw SoFi reaching only about US$6.0 billion revenue and US$1.0 billion earnings by 2029.

Metaplanet acquired former Siiibo Securities, which handles privately placed corporate bonds, for 210 million yen and changed its name to Metaplanet Securities in July; the subsidiary securities firm recounted the two months leading up to the acquisition. On September 29, the Financial Services Agency announced it would support a pilot program using stablecoins for trade settlement, with six companies participating: TradeWaltz, NTT Data, Mizuho Bank, MUFG Bank, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, and Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking. On September 28, Coinbase announced on X that it will soon offer a service allowing users to open Pokémon card packs on smartphones. On October 2, Metaplanet corrected a total of four documents including previously filed annual securities reports, revising a statement that CEO Simon Gerovich indirectly holds a majority of voting rights in shareholder MMXX Ventures Limited to clarify that he does not hold a majority. On September 30, KDDI, au Coincheck Digital Assets, and HashPort announced they will begin offering the crypto asset wallet αU wallet as a mini app within the au PAY app.

BNY Mellon, a major U.S. financial institution, is in talks with Payward, the parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, over a partnership in financial infrastructure, CoinDesk reported on October 2. The partnership could span a wide range of areas including crypto-related products, custody, asset management, trading and settlement, but the talks are ongoing and it is not certain whether an agreement will be reached, and both companies declined to comment to the outlet. In addition to operating Kraken, Payward provides infrastructure through its Payward Services business for financial institutions, giving banks and exchanges the foundation to embed trading and settlement functions into their own services. BNY Mellon handles custody, administration and clearing for institutional investors, and on January 9 announced the launch of a tokenized deposit feature that reflects customer deposit balances on a blockchain. Payward announced a partnership with Nasdaq on March 9 to connect regulated stock markets with blockchain-based markets, and on September 10 it announced an expanded partnership including a $100 million investment agreement by Nasdaq's investment arm. According to CoinDesk, the proposed partnership with BNY may include elements similar to the infrastructure collaboration in Payward's recent agreement with Nasdaq, but the specific services and start date have not been disclosed.

BlackRock has significantly expanded its Bitcoin holdings after a month of consistent inflows through its Bitcoin funds, with more than $1.5 billion in Bitcoin now topping the asset manager's holdings. The leading asset management firm built the position over that one-month stretch of steady inflows into its Bitcoin funds. The figure marks the scale of BlackRock's Bitcoin exposure following the sustained buying.

The Zcash Foundation has announced the release of Zebra 7.0.0-rc.0, the first release candidate for NU7, the next Zcash network upgrade. The release marks the start of the candidate phase for the upcoming network upgrade, with two key dates in October ahead. Zebra 7.0.0-rc.0 is the initial release candidate tied to NU7, positioning the foundation's Zebra implementation ahead of the upgrade. Further details on the October dates were not specified in the announcement.

Stellar has reached a new milestone in decentralized finance, with the network now surpassing $273 million. The project continues to position itself as a fast-growing crypto network, challenging XRP across the DeFi ecosystem. The milestone underscores Stellar's expanding presence in decentralized finance as it competes with rival blockchain networks.

Citi analyst Alex Saunders raised his base-case price forecast for bitcoin to $113,000 from $82,000. The token hovered near $85,000 on Friday as bond yields briefly eased and seasonal trends turned supportive, with ether also rising as strategists pointed to signs of a bullish trend for cryptocurrencies. Fundstrat head of digital assets Sean Farrell said seasonality is becoming a tailwind, noting October has historically been crypto's strongest month with around an 80% win rate, and that the setup shifted in a bullish direction over the past couple of days. Federal Reserve rhetoric has become somewhat more measured, and a weak jobs report has reduced expectations for further rate hikes, with more than 75% of market participants now expecting policymakers to hold rates steady at their October meeting. Farrell cautioned that continued stress in sovereign bonds and credit could lead to a short-term drawdown in crypto, but said the more stress priced in without breaking bitcoin, the better the forward risk/reward becomes, and pointed to a recent decline in 2-year real yields that could support the token by reducing the appeal of short-term government debt.

Block CEO Jack Dorsey urged users on Wednesday to opt in to Cash App's new Bitcoin bonus feature, writing "turn it on" while quoting the platform's announcement. The feature lets users earn weekly rewards of up to 2% in BTC annually simply by holding Bitcoin in the app, with rewards funded directly and no lockup, lending, staking, or moving of users' BTC, keeping holdings available for withdrawal at any time. The bonuses are taxable, and users must opt in through the Bitcoin tab in the app to become eligible. Cash App serves as Block's primary consumer-focused ecosystem, and its second-quarter volume grew 17% year over year to $56.5 billion, driven by the Visa-powered Cash App Card and buy-now-pay-later credit, while Consumer Lending origination volume grew 59% year over year to $18.9 billion. Block has also placed a significant bet on Bitcoin's utility as a medium of exchange, deploying payment capabilities within its Square point-of-sale system.

Bitcoin exchange reserves have dropped to their lowest level since 2023, a decline driven by the asset's recent sharp price rally. After a brief recovery, Bitcoin reclaimed its previous high around $87,000, and that move has fueled demand for the asset. The shrinking reserve balance points to investors pulling coins off exchanges, a shift that tightens the supply available for trading.

CoinDesk reported on October 2 that Tether-backed Utexo plans to issue the US dollar-pegged stablecoin USDT on the Bitcoin network within October. The company's co-founder told CoinDesk that it has obtained a commercial license covering the issuance of USDT and the use of Tether's trademark. USDT was born on Bitcoin in 2014, but its main circulation base has since shifted to Ethereum and Tron, and this plan marks an effort to expand its use on Bitcoin again after more than a decade. Utexo is building a mechanism that allows USDT to be sent without disclosing transaction details, and plans to support direct exchange between Bitcoin and USDT as well as loans collateralized by Bitcoin, enabling exchanges, wallets, and payment providers to handle USDT on Bitcoin. The technology underpinning this mechanism is RGB, which handles assets on Bitcoin; it transmits and receives without placing transaction details on a public ledger, with the parties involved verifying them, which differs from Ethereum and Tron, where balance changes and transaction contents are recorded on a public ledger. Its approach to illicit use also differs from USDT on Ethereum: the co-founder explained that freezing assets in the same way is technically impossible, so the company will blacklist assets linked to sanctioned entities or illegal activity and share that information with exchanges and others, and blacklisted assets cannot be withdrawn as USDT to Ethereum or Tron. After issuance, the company plans to move forward with support for the Lightning Network.

Broadcom is extending a $42 billion convertible note facility to Anthropic, turning the chipmaker into its customer's lender and centralizing control over the AI lab's infrastructure. The facility covers roughly one-third of the $125.2 billion five-year TPU computing lease that sits beneath Anthropic's $518 billion total compute commitment, of which $161.2 billion is owed to Broadcom alone. Under the structure, Broadcom converts its position into equity if Anthropic's eventual IPO succeeds, or retains senior creditor status if the company falters, a dual path Anthropic's prospectus flags as a potential conflict of interest. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has defended the arrangement as a flywheel, while Seaport Research analyst Jay Goldberg said Broadcom is following Nvidia, which has committed up to $100 billion to OpenAI, and AMD, which tied a $5 billion investment in Anthropic to deployment of its MI450 GPUs. Anthropic reported $11.6 billion in Q2 2026 revenue and its first positive adjusted operating profit, but Rothschild & Co managing partner Robert Leitao warned the concentrated bet depends on the two companies generating enough revenue to support the entire financing structure. Broadcom and Anthropic declined to comment on the disclosures.

Robinhood has rolled out new AI trading agents that let users connect a chatbot such as Anthropic's Claude or OpenAI and direct it to place trades, Fortune Finance & Crypto Editor Jeff John Roberts said on Fortune Daily with Ellie Austin. Roberts said users can log into Robinhood, name the agent, and instruct it to buy shares such as Tesla. He framed the launch as the first arrival of a feature he expects every other company to add within the next couple of years, rather than an immediate overhaul of investing. Roberts warned of unintended consequences from letting agents trade while users sleep, including herd behavior if many agents converge on the same stock, and said that while guard rails exist, not everyone will use them.

Orbix Invest has launched a promotion waiving the entry fee for its orbix BTC Flagship strategy, or OBX-BTC, cutting it from the usual 0.4% to 0% for investments of at least 100,000 baht per transaction and no more than 1 million baht per person, from October 1 to 30, 2026. Dr. Thanapoom Damrak, Managing Director of Orbix Invest Co., Ltd., said the Bitcoin market has passed its bottom and entered a new upward cycle after continuous institutional inflows into spot Bitcoin ETFs. Spot Bitcoin ETFs in the United States drew net inflows of 3.52 billion dollars in August, the highest level of the year, while total net assets stood at more than 99 billion dollars, and the number of major asset managers holding the ETFs rose 150% over the year. Bitcoin most recently closed at 86,620 dollars, its highest level since January, and rose 25% in August, its best month since November 2024. Although prices have recovered, they remain about 32% below the all-time high of roughly 126,000 dollars. About 20.09 million bitcoins, or roughly 96% of the 21 million maximum supply, have already been mined and are in circulation. The US Federal Reserve raised its policy rate by 0.25% to a range of 3.75–4.00%, its first rate hike since 2023, yet Bitcoin still rose after the decision. Dr. Thanapoom advised investors to invest gradually and consistently through DCA to average costs and reduce the impact of volatility, and stressed that year-end price estimates from various financial institutions remain wide, ranging from 38,000 to 170,000 dollars.

Evernorth shares will begin trading on Nasdaq under the ticker XRPN next Thursday, October 8, 2026. The listing introduces a new kind of market participant, one that is not a passive ETF but a fully fledged treasury positioned to work directly with the Ripple and XRP Ledger ecosystem. The development marks a first-of-its-kind structure tied to the XRP ecosystem.

Bitcoin held below $85,000 on Friday after briefly topping $87,000, with a new U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission proposal on crypto custody adding to expectations of broader institutional participation. The cryptocurrency was trading at $84,612.4 as of 21:55 ET, down 0.35% after reaching an intraday high of $87,219, its first move above $87,000 since Sept. 23. The SEC proposed changes to custody rules that would allow investment advisers and funds to directly hold certain digital assets when a qualified third-party custodian is unavailable, subject to safeguards, with the proposal entering a 60-day public comment period following publication in the Federal Register. Bitcoin also drew support from softer U.S. economic data, as September nonfarm payrolls rose 29,000 against expectations of 90,000, prompting declines in Treasury yields and the dollar. The move triggered about $142 million of Bitcoin short liquidations over 24 hours, compared with roughly $29 million in long positions, according to Coinglass data. Separately, Strategy Executive Chairman Michael Saylor detailed how the company finances its Bitcoin-focused business, with its STRC preferred shares carrying a 12% annualized dividend rate and a shareholder vote scheduled for Oct. 28 on a switch to daily dividend accruals, while Supercycle Finance said it plans to raise up to $75 million through a proposed offering, with most proceeds intended for Bitcoin purchases.

Cross-chain protocol THORChain has activated a liquidity pool for Zcash, bringing direct Bitcoin to Zcash swaps live. All network validators successfully synced with the Zcash blockchain following a scheduled network churn. The move opens a direct trading route between Bitcoin and Zcash through THORChain's cross-chain infrastructure.

Fiserv has launched the Roughrider stablecoin, a bank-to-bank settlement token built on Solana. Versa Bank issues the bank-only token, which serves a North Dakota network of more than 90 banks and credit unions. The coin is designed for interbank settlement among those institutions rather than for consumer retail use, replacing legacy systems such as Swift and ACH with near-instant, near-zero-fee transfers. The North Dakota effort is separate from a national network of regional and community banks that is launching its own bank stablecoin network. Because the token runs on Solana, its growth could drive demand for the network's gas fees.

The US economy added only 29,000 jobs in September, far below the roughly 90,000 economists had forecast, while the unemployment rate rose to 4.2% against an expected 4.1%. Prior months were revised sharply lower, with July cut by 31,000 to 10,000 and August reduced by 29,000 to 133,000, leaving combined employment 60,000 lower than previously reported. Wage growth also slowed, to 0.1% monthly and 3% annually. Scott Melker said the weak labor data and downward revisions could cool the chances of the Federal Reserve hiking rates in coming meetings, arguing the Fed may instead have to cut to support the job market. He also noted Bitcoin posted its best quarter in years while the bond market had its worst, with 10-year yields well over 5% and Bitcoin still rising.

Ripple added $765 million to the stablecoin market cap in the recently concluded Q3 2026, trailing only Circle among issuers. The RWA Foundation X account shared information on the growth of the stablecoin market cap in the recently concluded Q3 2026. Ripple's gain placed it second, behind Circle, in the quarter's stablecoin market cap expansion.

Bitcoin surged back above the $87,000 level on Friday, driven by a surprisingly weak U.S. jobs report. The latest macro data has put a significant dent in expectations for another Federal Reserve rate hike this month.

Micron Technology delivered another outstanding earnings report Wednesday evening, with revenue, earnings and margins all surging and management offering another strong outlook as demand continues to overwhelm available supply. According to UBS estimates, memory represented roughly 14% of total AI capital spending in 2025, a share expected to jump to 37% in 2026 and 64% by 2027. The U.S. economy added just 29,000 jobs in September, while July was revised down to a 10,000-job loss and August was revised lower to 133,000, with July and August payroll growth reduced by another 60,000 jobs combined; St. Louis Fed estimates put the breakeven rate needed to keep unemployment stable somewhere around 15,000 to 87,000 jobs per month. Bitcoin has gained roughly 35% over the past three months compared with about 10% for the Nasdaq 100, reversing its earlier summer underperformance. The Nasdaq is printing fresh all-time highs while the S&P 500 knocks on the door of record highs, as softer labor data pulls Treasury yields lower and eases pressure on the Fed to raise rates again.

The crypto market entered Friday evening, October 2, 2026, in a phase of powerful strategic accumulation, with the industry's total market capitalization standing in the $2.94–$3.03 trillion range. U.S. labor market data came in weak, as Non-Farm Payrolls rose by just 29,000 against expectations of $84,000–$90,000, while the unemployment rate climbed to 4.2%. The headline also points to the biggest USD stablecoin returning to Bitcoin after 12 years.