October 2025 Sell-Off Exposed Fragile Arbitrage Strategies and Reshaped Market Making The sharp crypto market crash in October marked a turning point for professional traders, signaling the collapse of the long-standing model of low-risk, high-yield arbitrage. The event wiped out billions in value and fundamentally altered how liquidity providers and market makers operate across digital asset markets. Between October 10 and 11, the crypto market lost nearly $20 billion in value, triggering what many describe as the most destructive event for sophisticated market makers in recent history. Automated deleveraging systems, designed to protect exchanges during extreme volatility, instead created a…
Author: Blockto Team
Three-day Bitcoin ETF outflow streak signals cautious investor sentiment as BTC price drops below $90,000 Bitcoin ETFs started 2026 with strong optimism, attracting over $1 billion in net inflows during the first two trading days. However, the surge proved short-lived, with a three-day outflow streak of $1.128 billion nearly erasing early gains, signaling a shift in investor sentiment. The recent ETF trends underline a lack of conviction buying among institutional investors. While early inflows suggested renewed risk appetite, the subsequent outflows reflect cautious positioning and rotation within portfolios rather than long-term confidence. Bitcoin prices mirrored this cautious sentiment, falling from…
How Bitcoin and Alternative Networks Could Still Function Without Full Connectivity As nationwide protests spread across Iran following worsening economic conditions and the Iranian rial hitting record lows against the US dollar, the government has imposed a near-total internet shutdown. This has raised a critical question for millions of Iranians: can cryptocurrency still work without internet access? Crypto Adoption in Iran During Economic Crisis Iran already has a significant crypto user base, with an estimated seven million users. Between January and July 2025, roughly $3.7 billion in crypto flows were tracked in the country. For many citizens, digital assets have…
Older Smart Contract Vulnerability Leads to Massive Token Collapse Truebit’s TRU token suffered a near-total collapse, plunging 99.9% after an exploit drained approximately 8,535 ether ($26.6 million) from the protocol’s reserves. The attack highlights the persistent risks posed by older smart contracts and legacy code within Ethereum-based protocols. Truebit said in X post; The attacker exploited a five-year-old smart contract flaw, where the minting function returned a purchase price of zero for large token buys. This allowed repeated purchases of TRU at no cost, followed by immediate sales into the bonding-curve reserve to extract ether. The exploit involved buy-and-sell loops…
US regulators signal growing acceptance of prediction markets and event-based trading The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission has issued a no-action letter to Bitnomial, clearing regulatory hurdles for the crypto derivatives exchange to offer event contracts and prediction markets. The decision reflects a broader shift in regulatory posture as US authorities grow more comfortable with blockchain-enabled financial products, particularly in an election-driven trading environment. The no-action letter relieves Bitnomial from certain asset swap reporting requirements that are impractical for high-frequency platforms like prediction markets, where tens of thousands of contracts can trade daily. In exchange, Bitnomial must maintain transparent, public-facing…
JPM Coin expansion targets multichain institutional payments and FX settlement JPMorgan is accelerating its blockchain strategy with plans to build regulated, interoperable digital money capable of moving across multiple blockchain networks. The initiative centers on expanding JPM Coin, the bank’s U.S. dollar deposit token, as institutional demand grows for faster, always-on settlement infrastructure. JPMorgan plans to extend JPM Coin beyond its current deployment on Ethereum layer-2 Base to additional networks, including the privacy-focused Canton Network. The goal is to enable near-instant payments and settlement across interconnected blockchain environments while maintaining regulatory oversight and strict access controls. JPM Coin represents U.S.…
BofA upgrade highlights Coinbase strategy to bring the financial system onchain Coinbase has received its second “buy” rating in a single week, as Bank of America upgraded the stock and projected significant upside. The move reflects growing confidence in Coinbase’s expanding business model, which now extends well beyond crypto trading into building core infrastructure for an onchain financial system. Bank of America lifted Coinbase from neutral to buy, citing the company’s evolution into an “everything exchange.” The bank highlighted Coinbase’s push into tokenized real-world assets, including stocks and exchange-traded funds, as well as its expansion into prediction markets. These initiatives…
Sanctioned entities increasingly use cryptocurrency to bypass financial restrictions Global sanctions imposed on nation-states and organizations have pushed illicit cryptocurrency activity to record levels in 2025, as sanctioned actors increasingly turn to blockchain networks to move value outside traditional financial systems. New data shows that sanctions, rather than cybercrime alone, are now the dominant driver of illicit crypto flows. Illicit crypto addresses received at least $154 billion in 2025, marking a 162% year-over-year increase from $59 billion in 2024. This surge was primarily driven by sanctioned entities, reflecting a shift in how nation-states engage with crypto infrastructure to evade restrictions.…
OP buyback plan aims to link token value directly to network performance Optimism has introduced a proposal that could significantly reshape the economics of the OP token, aiming to more closely align its value with real network activity. The plan would allocate a substantial portion of Superchain fee revenue toward systematic OP buybacks, marking a shift away from the token’s historically limited governance-only role. Under the proposal, 50% of all Superchain revenue would be used for monthly OP token buybacks, with repurchased tokens returned to the treasury. These tokens could later be burned or redistributed as staking rewards, depending on…
New Zcash wallet aims to restore cypherpunk values and accelerate scaling Zcash developers who recently departed the Electric Coin Company have announced plans to launch a new wallet called cashZ, signaling a renewed push toward cypherpunk principles and faster development. The announcement came less than 24 hours after the team’s public exit, underscoring their intention to remain fully committed to the Zcash ecosystem. ” said former ECC CEO Josh Swihart late on Thursday; The upcoming cashZ wallet is built on the same codebase as the existing Zashi wallet, allowing users to migrate seamlessly. The developers confirmed that the wallet will be released…