➡️ Hong Kong jails ex-banker over $470K USDT bribes

🔖 Hong Kong has jailed former China Construction Bank (Asia) relationship manager Lam Chun-yin for four years after he admitted accepting more than $470,000 in Tether to authenticate false bank instruments carrying a stated value above $1.6 billion. The Independent Commission Against Corruption said on Sept. 18 that District Court Judge Ernest Lin Kam-hung sentenced the 32-year-old after his guilty plea to one count of conspiracy for an agent to accept advantages under Hong Kong’s Prevention of Bribery Ordinance and Crimes Ordinance.

👀 The court ordered Lam to repay approximately HK$3.7 million to CCB (Asia), an amount equal to the bribes identified in the case. ICAC said the judge started from a six-year prison term and reduced it by one-third because Lam pleaded guilty, leaving a four-year sentence after finding no exceptional reason for another reduction. At the time of the offenses, ICAC said Lam worked in the Consumer Banking Division at CCB (Asia)’s Causeway Bay retail branch, where he served individual customers. The agency said his role did not cover business credit facilities or letters of credit, and the bank had never authorized him to handle such products.

📊 Vesttoo Limited, which has since ceased operations, ran a platform for insurance-related investment transactions. ICAC said investors using the platform had to provide bank-issued standby letters of credit so an issuing bank could ultimately cover relevant losses if an investor failed to meet its obligations. Yu Po Holdings Limited entered the platform as an investor in early 2022. The anti-graft agency said a criminal group then arranged for Lam to falsely present himself as China Construction Bank’s contact person for standby letters of credit connected with Yu Po.

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⚠️ THORChain decentralization challenged over DPRK flows

🌐 GoPlus Security has challenged THORChain’s decentralization claims, arguing that its validator-controlled vaults and emergency mechanisms give node operators powers that differ from Bitcoin and Ethereum. GoPlus Security said on Sept. 27 that THORChain should not compare its cross-chain architecture directly with decentralized Layer 1 networks when explaining why stolen funds cannot be blocked. The firm pointed to THORChain’s threshold-signature vaults, active validator set and emergency governance controls.

⚡️ Its criticism follows renewed scrutiny over stolen funds routed through THORChain after the Bitget breach. GoPlus claims around 101.5 BTC linked to the incident had already exited through the protocol, while another 27.63 million XRP was being routed toward Bitcoin.Bitget has not publicly confirmed that North Korean actors carried out its September attack. The exchange said investigators had seen preliminary IP and VPN similarities associated with previous North Korean-linked activity, but attribution remained unconfirmed

🔖 Node operators can then vote on more targeted measures through Mimir, the protocol’s on-chain parameter system. THORChain documentation lists trading halts, chain-specific stops and signing controls among the available emergency actions. GoPlus argued that these controls distinguish THORChain from Bitcoin or Ethereum base-layer consensus. THORChain uses threshold signatures to authorize outbound transactions from shared vaults, meaning participating nodes collectively manage the signing process for cross-chain swaps.

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⚠️ Solana price prediction 2026: Will Alpenglow spark a bullish SOL breakout in October?

🔔 Solana price has entered October near $121 after gaining 14.6% in September, leaving a break above 124–125 as the main technical condition for extending the recovery toward $148. The current move follows two strong months. Historical price data show SOL gained around 41.5% in August before rising another 14.6% in September. September opened near $103 and finished around $118, with the token reaching above $124 late in the month.

🔗 October has started with SOL recovering from the 117–119 area, but buyers have not yet cleared the late-September high. CoinGecko places the recent seven-day range between $116.44 and $124.27, keeping both levels relevant as traders assess the next move. The immediate resistance zone sits between roughly $124 and $125. SOL closed at $122.08 on Sept. 25 and later traded above $124 intraday before retreating toward $118 at the end of the month.

⚡️ Price has since recovered above $120, but a move through 124–125 has not been confirmed. A daily close above the resistance range, followed by support holding there, would strengthen the case for another leg higher. The $148 level comes from a separate technical setup shared by trader Daan Crypto Trades. His chart identified $117 as the level SOL needed to preserve before targeting $148. Since SOL has held above that region for now, the target remains technically possible, though the resistance around 124–125 must still be cleared first.

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⚠️ Dogecoin records $57M net outflows: What’s next?

❗️ Dogecoin has recorded approximately $57.2 million in net spot outflows over seven days, with CoinGlass reporting $538.16 million in outflows against $480.96 million in inflows as DOGE fell nearly 9% during the week. CoinGlass data showed a seven-day spot net flow percentage of -599.50%, alongside continued pressure on the cryptocurrency’s price. The figures indicate that more funds left the tracked spot market than entered during the reporting period, although they do not establish that large investors purchased Dogecoin or moved the withdrawn assets into long-term storage.

⚡️ Meanwhile, Dogecoin traded near $0.085 on October 11, according to CoinGecko, after declining from levels above $0.09 earlier in the month. Dogecoin’s latest spot flow data shows a difference between funds moving into and out of cryptocurrency exchanges during the past seven days.

🔖 According to the CoinGlass data, total inflows reached $480.96 million, while outflows amounted to $538.16 million. The difference produced net outflows of $57.2 million. CoinGlass’s reported -599.50% spot net flow indicator describes a change in its percentage-based metric. It should not be interpreted as a 599% decline in total trading activity. The dollar figures provide a more direct comparison of exchange movements during the period.

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🔔 Bitget restricts users in Russia and Belarus under new rules

🔗 Bitget has announced plans to close selected cryptocurrency accounts following an October 16 update to its terms of use that lists Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan among countries where customers cannot access its services. In an October 17 statement on X, the exchange confirmed that affected customers would receive individual notifications explaining when they must stop trading, close positions and withdraw their remaining funds. Bitget described the action as “a one-off exercise for certain users only” and said its trading platform would continue operating.

❗️ The announcement did not identify how many users would lose access or provide a common deadline. Customers who have not received a termination notice can continue using their accounts, provided they meet the exchange’s eligibility requirements. Bitget’s eligibility rules require customers to confirm that they are not restricted persons and are not accessing services from locations where trading is prohibited under its terms. The agreement applies to individuals and corporate entities, with separate provisions addressing sanctions and other legal restrictions.

🌐 Other jurisdictions appearing on the list include Canada, the United States, France, Germany, Japan and Singapore. The October revision did not newly introduce restrictions against customers in all these markets, and the updated document does not identify which existing users will receive termination notices. In response to a question about Russian customers, Bitget’s official support account referred to the prohibited-country list and cited compliance with regulations in different jurisdictions.

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⚠️ NEAR’s private perps now share margin. Who can see the risk?

📊 The new cross-margin option lets positions draw on one balance. NEAR describes a confidential route into a dedicated Hyperliquid account, while the exchange still has to price and liquidate the trades. A trader switching an existing position from isolated to cross margin would need to understand which pool then supports it and whether the change alters withdrawable funds. Hyperliquid’s documentation describes the modes, but NEAR’s short launch post does not publish an interface-specific walkthrough of every switch or collateral type. The relevant account setting should be visible before a customer confirms a position, with the current maintenance requirement and the effect on other trades. An attractive quoted return says little about whether a new loss can reach collateral held for a separate strategy.

⚡️ Cross margin is sometimes described as reducing liquidation risk because spare balance can support a losing trade. The statement is only half the picture. Spare balance can delay a particular position’s liquidation, while the overall account can lose more if several positions deteriorate. Isolated margin draws a firmer boundary around the collateral allocated to one trade, but it can liquidate that trade sooner even when money sits elsewhere. Neither mode is universally preferable; the allocation is a choice about how losses are shared. The new feature changes that allocation for NEAR’s users.

⚠️ Take an illustrative account with $1,000 of collateral and two positions, each with a notional exposure of $2,000. A $300 mark-to-market loss on one trade would reduce account equity before considering funding or fees. If the other trade gained $200, the combined change would be a $100 loss. Cross margin looks at the pool and its maintenance requirements; the example does not establish a liquidation price because each asset’s margin tier, mark price and position size matter.

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⚡️ Monad’s Keone Hon pushes OpSec guide and AI security tool Ultrafuzz

❗️ Monad co-founder Keone Hon has urged crypto teams to make security their top priority, sharing operational-security guidance and promoting the foundation’s open-source Ultrafuzz tool as attackers gain access to more capable AI. Monad Foundation’s resources cover both the software teams deploy and the accounts, devices, and signing arrangements used to manage it. In his posts, Hon directed readers to the Crypto OpSec Bible, guidance on administrator accounts, and research on finding vulnerabilities with AI.

⚠️ “In this age of AI-empowered attackers, the only way forward for our industry is to continue hardening,” he wrote. “Security should be every team’s top focus.” Written by Omar, the Crypto OpSec Bible opens with frustration over recurring compromises involving unfamiliar code, phishing, exposed credentials, and poor device management.

🕯 The guide cites ChainLight’s Lumos tracker, which recorded $3.31 billion in exploited value from control hijacking, compared with $983 million from smart-contract vulnerabilities, across incidents tracked from January 2023 to the guide’s reporting cutoff. Its control-hijacking category includes social engineering, private-key leakage, unauthorized access, supply-chain attacks, and other conventional security failures. The comparison covers the tracker’s recorded incidents and is presented as a historical snapshot.