[a16z drops 'crypto' from flagship blockchain fund name]

Andreessen Horowitz, or a16z, plans to remove “crypto” from the name of its flagship blockchain fund and broaden its investment scope into other sectors, Unfolded reported. One of the firm’s early founding members is also expected to leave the company.
https://coinness.com/en/news/1172634

[Crypto market awaits fresh upside catalyst, CoinDesk says]

Bitcoin is moving increasingly in line with stocks as the crypto market waits for a new upside catalyst, CoinDesk said.

The outlet said the period when cryptocurrencies consistently outperformed other assets has passed, with correlation to the stock market rising recently. CoinDesk added global macroeconomic conditions still remain a key market variable, while BTC scarcity could serve as a defensive factor during instability in global equities. It also cautioned that spot Bitcoin ETF buying has yet to stabilize, saying sustained ETF inflows are needed to confirm a clear recovery trend.
https://coinness.com/en/news/1172635

[Irish central bank fines Coinbase unit $3.6M over client fund safeguards]

Ireland’s central bank has fined Coinbase’s local subsidiary 3.25 million euros ($3.6 million) for breaches tied to client fund protection obligations, Reuters reported.

The regulator said the subsidiary relied excessively on Coinbase Group in the U.S. for client fund safeguarding operations and had deficiencies in its oversight framework for outsourced work. It also said flaws in system design and insufficient internal control reviews left dedicated client fund protection accounts underfunded for an extended period.
https://coinness.com/en/news/1172636

[Bybit secures official approval to operate crypto exchange in Dubai]

Bybit has officially obtained regulatory approval to operate its business in Dubai, Watcher Guru reported.
https://coinness.com/en/news/1172637

[SoFi launches SOFIE deposit token with 4.4% annual yield and FDIC coverage]

U.S. financial services firm SoFi has launched SOFIE, a deposit token product that pays 4.4% annual interest, The Block reported. According to SoFi, this is the first time a U.S. national bank has directly offered tokenized deposits to retail customers.

SOFIE is valued at $1 per token, and customers can convert it one-to-one into SoFi’s stablecoin, SoFiUSD, to buy cryptocurrencies or transfer funds to external wallets. Deposits continue to earn interest until conversion and are protected by the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. within statutory limits.
https://coinness.com/en/news/1172638

[Dune launches real-time data across 200-plus onchain trading platforms]

Crypto data analytics firm Dune has launched a real-time market data service to meet growing demand for tokenization and onchain trading, The Block reported. The new spot data feed provides related data about one second after trades are executed and supports more than 200 onchain trading platforms across 12 networks, including Solana (SOL), Ethereum (ETH), Base, BNB Chain and X Layer. Its perpetual futures data service will use trading data from Hyperliquid (HYPE) and Lyra.
https://coinness.com/en/news/1172639

[Home invasion targeting crypto in France injures couple in their 60s]

A home invasion robbery targeting cryptocurrency took place in Mont-de-Marsan in France’s Landes department, local media reported. Three masked suspects allegedly broke into the home of a couple in their 60s, threatened them for cryptocurrency and tied them up. During the attack, the 63-year-old husband suffered a head injury, and the suspects fled with a laptop and mobile phones.

Police are investigating whether the case may be linked to the couple’s son, who works in the cryptocurrency industry, according to the report. The son is currently under police protection, and the three suspects have not yet been arrested.
https://coinness.com/en/news/1172640

[Travala expands AVA buyback program]

Crypto-based travel booking platform Travala announced a program to increase its AVA buybacks in line with monthly rewards for AVA Smart members. If monthly member rewards reach $100,000, $150,000, $200,000 or $250,000, Travala said its buybacks will rise proportionally. The total buyback size is estimated to reach as much as four times the member rewards.
https://coinness.com/en/news/1172641

[Ethereum researchers propose cutting transaction finality time from 16 minutes to 4]

Ethereum researchers have proposed cutting transaction finality time from about 16 minutes to four, a change expected to reduce liquidity needs and related costs for cross-chain fund transfers, CoinDesk reported.

Five researchers, including Ethereum researcher Ben Edgington, submitted a draft Ethereum Improvement Proposal on Oct. 21. The initial goal is to make finality four times faster, although the proposal remains at the design stage and no detailed rollout timeline has been set.

Under Ethereum’s current system, a transaction can be included in a block but still take about 16 minutes to reach finality. As a result, cross-chain transfer services that front users funds must keep their own capital locked up until the transaction is finalized. If a service advances $10,000, for example, the same amount of liquidity remains tied up until final settlement.

The researchers said shorter finality times could ease that capital burden. For a service advancing $1 million per hour, funds tied up while waiting for transaction finality would fall to about $67,000 from about $267,000, as faster finality would shorten the cycle for providers to recover and reuse fronted capital.
https://coinness.com/en/news/1172642

[Visa in talks to acquire Fireblocks for $2.5B: Bloomberg]

Visa is in talks to acquire crypto infrastructure firm Fireblocks for $2.5 billion, Bloomberg reported. If completed, the deal would further expand Visa’s presence in crypto custody and blockchain payment infrastructure.
https://coinness.com/en/news/1172643

[CZ says no crypto wallet is 100% safe, stresses risk management]

Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao, also known as CZ, said on X that no cryptocurrency wallet is 100% safe and that no software is entirely free of bugs or no technology is perfectly secure.

Zhao stressed that every action carries risk and that doing nothing also involves risk. Zhao added that there will continue to be problems to solve and trial and error ahead, making it important to stay up to date, manage risk and address issues.
https://coinness.com/en/news/1172644

[Blockaid flags suspected hack on WAXP multichain bridge]

A hacking attack is believed to be underway on the WAXP network’s multichain bridge, according to blockchain security firm Blockaid.

In a post on X, Blockaid said the attacker exploited a flaw in WAX’s smart contract withdrawal fee validation to generate withdrawal requests without paying actual assets, and tokens were then paid out on the Solana and Ethereum networks based on those requests. Through five transactions so far, about 52,986 USDC, 21,558 USDT, 840 DAI, 2.55 WETH and 0.11 WBTC have been drained, Blockaid said. The firm added the vulnerability stemmed from a design that allowed negative values to be entered for withdrawal fees, and said the code had not been fixed, leaving a risk of further attacks.
https://coinness.com/en/news/1172645

[Vitalik-inspired memecoin ZC shuts down after security breach]

ZC, a memecoin project inspired by a novel by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, announced it is shutting down after a security breach. The project said Railway notified it on Oct. 21 that its entire codebase, credentials and private keys had been compromised. It said it later tried to migrate and replace the credentials but was unable to secure a safe way to keep operating. According to GMGN, ZC has plunged more than 90% over the past 24 hours, leaving its market capitalization under $300,000.
https://coinness.com/en/news/1172646

[CMCC Global to tokenize 2 hedge funds through Tether and Bitfinex Securities]

Blockchain asset manager CMCC Global announced plans to tokenize two quantitative hedge funds through Tether and Bitfinex Securities. The funds are the Crest Fund and the Liberty Bitcoin Accumulation Fund, or LBAF, and will be issued under El Salvador’s digital asset law.
https://coinness.com/en/news/1172647

[Only 1.1% of last year's stablecoin on-chain volume was tied to real payments]

Only about $390 billion of roughly $35 trillion in stablecoin on-chain transaction volume last year was used for actual payments, or about 1.1% of the total, according to a CoinDesk Research analysis.

The analysis said total stablecoin on-chain volume exceeded the combined payment volume of Visa and Mastercard, while indicating most of that activity was generated for purposes other than payments for goods and services.
https://coinness.com/en/news/1172648

[DWF Labs says spot BTC ETF flows are a lagging, not leading, price indicator]

U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF fund flows appear to reflect existing market trends rather than serve as a leading indicator for future prices, according to an analysis by crypto market maker DWF Labs.

Based on an analysis of 694 trading days since the ETFs launched in January 2024, DWF Labs found net outflows in seven of eight instances when BTC fell more than 15%. In contrast, all nine instances when BTC rose more than 15% were accompanied by net inflows. The correlation coefficient between ETF flows and BTC price changes over the previous five trading days was 0.54, while the correlation with price changes over the following five trading days was just 0.03. DWF Labs said this suggests ETF flows are more closely tied to price moves that have already occurred than to future price action.

The firm added some investors may use a hedging strategy that combines ETF purchases with sales of CME Bitcoin futures, making it difficult to gauge actual investor sentiment based on ETF flow data alone.
https://coinness.com/en/news/1172649

[US stocks open lower]

The three major U.S. stock indices opened lower today.
- S&P 500: -0.88%
- Nasdaq: -1.5%
- Dow Jones: -0.13%
https://coinness.com/en/news/1172650

[Fidelity cited as saying BTC could reach $200K]

Former Bitcoin Magazine editor Pete Rizzo said on X that global asset manager Fidelity had mentioned the possibility of Bitcoin reaching $200,000. Rizzo said Fidelity had advised investors to prepare for BTC potentially hitting $200,000 soon and warned the upside move could come much faster than expected. However, the original statement and any detailed analytical basis were not provided, and it was not confirmed whether the remarks reflected Fidelity’s official position.
https://coinness.com/en/news/1172651

[Thailand SEC says spot crypto ETF inquiries rise, but no formal applications yet]

Thailand’s SEC said it has received inquiries from multiple asset managers about launching spot crypto ETFs, but no firm has yet submitted a formal application, according to Cointelegraph.

The regulator did not disclose the names of the asset managers that made the inquiries and said it remains unclear whether the country’s first crypto ETF will be approved this year. The timing of any approval is expected to depend on applicants’ preparedness, regulatory review and whether investor protection requirements are met.
https://coinness.com/en/news/1172652

[BNB Chain to carry out Jenner hard fork on testnet on Oct. 28]

BNB Chain said it will carry out the Jenner hard fork on its testnet on Oct. 28.

The upgrade will introduce Payment Lane, a feature that reserves 5% of block gas by default for payment transactions. It will also add millisecond-level block timestamp support for smart contracts and functions related to CAS20, a new compliance-focused asset standard. The specific timeline for CAS20 availability will be disclosed later.
https://coinness.com/en/news/1172653

[Ripple partners with Arf to provide RLUSD payment liquidity on XRPL]

Ripple has partnered with global payments finance company Arf to provide payment liquidity based on stablecoin RLUSD on the XRP Ledger, CoinDesk reported. Through the collaboration, licensed cross-border payment firms will be able to access short-term working capital using RLUSD. Arf processes $10 billion in annual payments, and the two companies plan to expand liquidity provision for cross-border payments on that basis.
https://coinness.com/en/news/1172654