Crypto News

PANews reported on October 10 that according to market news, major global banks plan to jointly launch a stablecoin project. Alliance members include Santander, Bank of America, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Citi, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG), TD Bank and UBS.

PANews reported on October 10th that the 0G Foundation announced on the X platform that registration for the second phase of the airdrop has officially opened. Testnet contributors do not need to undergo KYC. As the 0G team reviews appeals from testnet node operators and finalizes the on-chain airdrop data, airdrops will be automatically distributed to their wallets. For community participants, the second phase will allow users who were unable to complete KYC registration in the first phase to register. It will also allow users who were mistakenly omitted from the first phase, selected Discord roles, or are active Kaito users to verify their eligibility. For users who continue to encounter issues during this phase, a new appeal form will be released next week. Appeals close at 12:00 UTC+0 on Tuesday, October 14th.

PANews reported on October 10 that according to Lookonchain monitoring, an ancient Bitcoin whale continued to increase its short positions in BTC and ETH, and its total holdings now exceed US$1.1 billion. Using 10x leverage, shorted 6,189 BTC, worth approximately $753 million, with a liquidation price of $130,810. Using 12x leverage, shorted 81,203 ETH, worth approximately $353 million, with a liquidation price of $4,589.3.

PANews reported on October 10th that Morgan Stanley informed its financial advisors on Friday that it is expanding cryptocurrency investment access to all clients and allowing such investments in any account type, including retirement accounts. Starting October 15th, financial advisors will be able to recommend cryptocurrency funds to any client. Previously, this option was limited to clients with a higher risk tolerance and at least $1.5 million in assets who wished to invest in cryptocurrency in taxable brokerage accounts. With Morgan Stanley removing eligibility requirements for cryptocurrency funds, the firm will rely on automated monitoring processes to ensure clients are not overly concentrated in this volatile asset class, according to people familiar with the matter. The bank's global investment committee recently released a model that recommends setting an initial allocation of up to 4% to cryptocurrencies based on different goals, ranging from "wealth preservation" to "opportunistic growth." People familiar with the matter said that for now, financial advisors are still limited to recommending Bitcoin funds from BlackRock and Fidelity, but Morgan Stanley is monitoring industry trends and considering adding other cryptocurrencies to these products. They added that clients can also request to invest in any listed cryptocurrency exchange-traded product.

HashKey Group, the Hong Kong-based financial services company, has filed confidential paperwork for a potential IPO, slated for later this year. According to a Bloomberg report, HashKey aims to raise a maximum of $500 million from the offering.Visit Website

A new effort to fund the defence of Tornado Cash developers Roman Storm and Alexey Pertsev will serve as a “proof-of-concept” for a team within the Ethereum Foundation focusing on raising money for so-called public goods. If the effort succeeds in raising money for the embattled developers, it could become a model for future, crypto-based efforts to fund worthwhile causes, Vinay Vasanji, the head of the Foundation’s Strategic Funding Coordination team, told DL News. Keyring Network, a provider of verification services that rely on zero-knowledge technology, will direct three months of revenue from a new product to the developers’ defence. The product allows whitelisted institutions to privately access DeFi lending markets. “Right from the get go, we’ve had a very close ideological alignment to what the team at Tornado was building,” Keyring CEO Alex McFarlane told DL News. “We were shocked to see that Roman and Alexey were targeted in the way they were.”The prosecutionStorm, Pertsev, and a third co-founder, Roman Semenov, launched Tornado Cash in 2020. The protocol is a so-called crypto mixer that makes it difficult, if not impossible, to trace the movement of digital assets across Ethereum and several other blockchains.Prominent crypto entrepreneurs, including Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, have argued Tornado Cash provided much-needed privacy on an otherwise public ledger. Still, the protocol became popular with cybercriminals, including hackers affiliated with North Korea.In August, jurors convicted Storm of conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison. Storm has vowed to fight the conviction and recently asked a federal court to dismiss the verdict as well as two other charges on which the jurors were deadlocked: conspiracy to launder money and conspiracy to evade sanctions. Pertsev was convicted of money laundering by a Dutch court in 2024 and sentenced to five years in prison. He is appealing his conviction.There have been two developments in his case just this week. On Thursday, the court granted Pertsev’s request for additional investigation. The defence aims to test blockchain evidence relied on by prosecutors, according to his attorney Judith De Boer. “The prosecution appears to rely on Chainalysis labels and clustering without providing the underlying data,” she told DL News. “The Court of Appeal has ordered additional clarification from the FIOD, will appoint an independent expert, and has referred the case back to an appellate investigative judge to ensure a thorough review.” And on Friday, a judge granted Pertsev’s request to remove his ankle monitor. Both developers have gone to the crypto community hat in hand, asking for donations to fund their defence. The pair count the Ethereum Foundation, Buterin, and other prominent industry players among their donors. As of Thursday, Storm and Pertsev have raised at least 189 Ether and 799 Ether respectively, sums that were worth more than $800,000 and $3.4 million at Thursday’s prices. It has been an enormous show of support from the industry, which, by and large, views their prosecution as a threat to the ongoing development of open-source, privacy preserving technology. The solution But the developers need to continue raising money as their legal travails drag on. McFarlane and Vasanji hope that Keyring’s decision to donate proceeds from a new, yield-bearing product will inspire others to follow suit and create a more durable, consistent model for crypto-based fundraising. “One of the cool things about blockchain is it’s so openly capitalistic,” McFarlane said. But that can make it difficult to convince institutions to part with hard-earned capital in the name of the common good — in this case, defending developers’ right to build privacy-enhancing tools like Tornado Cash. “If you’re able to get a high yield and you’re also able to support the defense of two guys who’ve been wound up, frankly, in a political campaign against crypto, then that’s beneficial to everybody,” McFarlane said. Keyring’s product, which it refers to as zkVerified permissioned vaults, allows pre-approved institutional and retail investors to privately deposit crypto in yield-generating “vaults.” The process is designed to let investors access the world of decentralised finance without running afoul of the law or exposing their crypto wallets and, in turn, their onchain financial history. Vasanji said he’s been searching for initiatives that make crypto-based fundraising more reliable. “There isn’t a clear path for sustainable funding for public interest initiatives,” Vasanji said. Traditional businesses that appeal to civic-minded consumers often pledge to donate a portion of their proceeds to charitable causes. One Percent for the Planet, for example, recruits businesses such as Patagonia to donate at least 1% of their revenue to environmental conservation. Keyring’s effort differs in a key respect, according to Vasanji: Donations will happen in real-time, reducing operational and legal overhead. “The introduction of these types of mechanisms really aligns with the increasing institutional adoption of blockchains like Ethereum,” he said. “Really, what we’re trying to drive for is less operational and legal overhead, to donate quicker and larger pools of [money] for urgent initiatives, and to do that in a way that does not in any way change the inherent natural incentive structure that incentivizes people to use these protocols or projects in the first place.”Aleks Gilbert is DL News’ New York-based DeFi correspondent. You can reach him at aleks@dlnews.com.

PANews reported on October 10th that, according to Cryptopolitan, the privacy-focused blockchain Monero has released a major upgrade, CLI v0.18.4.3 "Fluorine Fermi," to enhance its protection against spy nodes. In the Monero community, the term "spy node" refers to malicious nodes, groups, or botnets that can link IP addresses to transaction information, effectively undermining the blockchain's privacy guarantees. The "Fermi" update addresses this issue by implementing an improved node selection algorithm that reduces the likelihood of users connecting to multiple nodes within the same IP subnet, a common tactic used by spy nodes. This prevents users from connecting to large clusters of suspicious IP addresses, directing them to more secure nodes. The "Fermi" update also changes how and to whom messages are sent, making it extremely difficult for spies to track their delivery paths. This helps the Monero email service avoid these suspicious delivery parties.

PANews reported on October 10th that Aster announced on the X platform that the launch of the Aster Phase 2 airdrop checker will be delayed. The team is actively working to resolve this issue. Earlier news , Aster announced that it will launch the second phase of airdrop qualification inquiry at 21:00 today.

XRP, Cardano, and PEPE had their moment. They created overnight winners in past runs, but momentum is fading now.

PANews reported on October 10th that Bloomberg News reported that the leadership of artificial intelligence computing company CoreWeave Inc. sold over $1 billion worth of stock after the lockup period ended in mid-August, ranking among the top ten individual insider sellers in the third quarter. This was the first opportunity for insiders to cash out since CoreWeave's IPO in March, which created four new billionaires. Since then, the company's stock price has soared over 250%. According to Washington Service data, director Jack Cogen sold $477 million worth of stock during the quarter, while co-founder Brannin McBee netted $426 million. Both sold shares under pre-arranged 10b5-1 plans tied to target prices, joining several other insiders in cashing out. A CoreWeave representative declined to comment. Some CoreWeave investors followed suit, with its largest institutional shareholder, Magnetar Financial LLC, selling nearly $1.9 billion worth of stock during the same period. Documents filed in October show that the hedge fund still holds over 20% of the company's Class A shares.