Tag: CRYPTOS FoxBusiness

That would theoretically put a large share of crypto within reach. Millions of bitcoin sit in addresses whose public keys are already visible onchain, as CoinDesk has previously reported. On Ethereum, any account that has ever sent a transaction has revealed its key, and the stablecoins and tokenized funds issued on the network are controlled through that signature system as well.

No practical attack on bitcoin or Ethereum’s wallet keys has been demonstrated, and none appeared in the research reviewed by CoinDesk.

AI already a crypto threat

The warning followed OpenAI’s release on Tuesday of 722 mathematical manuscripts produced by an unreleased model tested on approximately 4,000 research problems. Some findings have computer-checkable proofs, while others remain unverified and could contain errors, the company said.

The manuscripts came from the model OpenAI said last month had solved the Navier–Stokes problem, one of seven Millennium Prize challenges in mathematics. Each result used, on average, computing power equal to roughly three hours of ChatGPT Pro reasoning, the company said.

Within a day, an outside researcher reran the computer check on one result, a new limit on how fast computers can multiply large grids of numbers, a question mathematicians have worked on since 1969, and found it held.

There is precedent for much larger holdings reaching the market. Galaxy confirmed in July 2025 that it sold more than 80,000 $BTC for an early investor as part of an estate-planning strategy. Wednesday’s transfer is far smaller, and its records do not establish a sale.

Old coins, active address

The alert prompted questions online because the address had spent other bitcoin between 2011 and 2018.

Bitcoin records incoming payments separately, allowing a wallet to spend one payment while leaving another untouched. Those unspent payments are called UTXOs. An address can therefore remain active while some of its coins sit still for years, as happened here.

The address spent 200 $BTC across two transactions in August 2015, another 100 $BTC in December 2017 and 249 $BTC in March 2018. The separate 100.02 $BTC payment from July 2010 remained unspent throughout.

“This address has been somewhat active in the past, but these specific coins have not moved since 2010. We track the coins,” Galaxy Research said on X.

CoinDesk traced that payment directly to two mining rewards created in July 2010, one worth 50 $BTC and the other 50.02 $BTC, including fees. Miners, the computers competing to add transactions to Bitcoin, received 50 newly created coins per block at the time.

$NEAR Intents, a cross-chain trading protocol, has handled over $31 billion in cumulative transaction volume, according to the $NEAR Intents Explorer.

$NEAR’s rise in the rankings also follows the Sept. 29 launch of the first US spot exchange-traded product tracking the token. The Bitwise fund trades on NYSE Arca under the ticker NRR, offering investors exposure to $NEAR without directly holding the crypto.

$NEAR Intents suffered a $3.8 million exploit involving its deposit and withdrawal infrastructure last week. On Oct. 2, General Manager Alex Shevchenko said that all stolen funds had been returned, a day after the breach was disclosed.

The guidance covers MiCA-regulated crypto services, including trading platforms, exchange services, order execution, custody, transfers, investment advice and portfolio management.

ESMA said crypto firms should implement technical, contractual and organisational controls to prevent EU clients from acquiring or increasing their exposure to unauthorised stablecoins.

Regulators may permit limited services to help clients exit existing positions, including liquidation, conversion, withdrawal, transfers and safekeeping. However, ESMA said such activities must be temporary and closely supervised.

The update expands on ESMA’s January 2025 guidance, which called for restrictions on trading and exchange services that involved non-compliant stablecoins.

Bitcoin $BTC$82,652.62 extended its slide during Asian hours, dipping to about $82,300 before recovering to around $82,800, roughly 4% below Tuesday’s high near $86,600. The CoinDesk 100 has lost close to 2% over 24 hours.

Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake used a post on X, viewed almost 4 million times, to urge the industry to begin planning for what he called “bunker mode.”

The idea is a gradual migration of funds to new addresses whose public keys have never been exposed. Drake argued that AI-driven advances in mathematics make it reasonable to brace for a break of the elliptic-curve signatures securing bitcoin and ether wallets in “months not years.” He pointed to a batch of 722 mathematical results released by OpenAI this week as evidence.

Not everyone agreed on the urgency. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said the risk from AI-accelerated math should be taken seriously, but advised holders against scrambling to move funds. Samson Mow, CEO of bitcoin technology firm Jan3, told followers there was no need to panic “because an Ethereum researcher is saying silly things.”

Crypto and fintech investment firm Deus X Capital has ceased operations as its backers pursue separate investment strategies, the company told CoinDesk.

The company, led by former Galaxy Digital (GLXY) executive Tim Grant, will formally unwind on Jan. 31, 2027. Chief Investment Officer Stuart Connolly will remain to oversee the transition, while some portfolio businesses will continue operating with the involvement of existing stakeholders.

The Morton family investors behind Deus X are splitting their investment activities. Shane Morton is establishing Darius, focused on artificial intelligence, while Owen and Jason Morton are setting up 95, focused on markets and fintech.

Grant, who led Galaxy Digital’s Europe, Middle East and Africa business before joining Deus X, will become CEO of TensorX, an AI venture within Darius owned by Shane Morton, one of Deus X’s founders and backers.

“We want to be a prominent player in AI in Europe,” Grant told CoinDesk in an interview.

Crypto is facing growing competition from AI for investor attention and capital. Galaxy Research said in September that interest in artificial intelligence was diverting attention from digital assets, adding to venture firms’ fundraising challenges.

Wells Fargo, one of the largest banks in the US, is reportedly in talks with Payward, the parent company of Kraken, to expand its operations in the cryptocurrency market. According to sources close to the matter, Payward could become the bank’s liquidity provider for digital asset transactions.

Liquidity providers help large transactions be completed without causing excessive price fluctuations in the market by offering constant prices for buy and sell orders. In a potential collaboration, Wells Fargo clients’ orders could be placed through the bank interface, while the necessary cryptocurrency liquidity could be provided by Payward.

Such a model could allow the bank to offer digital asset transactions to its clients without building a cryptocurrency exchange infrastructure from scratch. Payward, in turn, could leverage Kraken’s spot and derivatives markets, as well as its custody, staking, tokenized equity, and institutional trading infrastructure.

Kalshi wants one oil trade to last almost forever

Typical oil futures have a calendar attached to them. The trader buys exposure, the contract moves closer to expiration, and any trader who wishes to remain in the trade needs to roll into another month. This rollover business becomes boring until funds start bleeding due to transaction costs, price spreads, and poor timing of trades.

In effect, Kalshi is saying: Why do this every few weeks or months?

The contract it proposes would make one position last for ten years, while employing a funding strategy that keeps the price tied to the WTI market. For those holding crude exposure over extended periods of time, this may mean simpler mechanics. There will be no need to constantly roll contracts, as well as reduced risks of mistakenly rolling into a physical delivery situation at Cushing, Oklahoma, where the trader had no intentions of taking possession of the barrel of oil.

The company also believes that a single large duration contract would help keep the trading activity in one place instead of spreading liquidity across a long series of expirations.

That idea is arriving at a pretty convenient moment.

The Iran war has turned crude into one of the most aggressively traded macro assets of the year. Hedge funds, institutions and individual traders have all been chasing energy swings as geopolitical headlines keep jerking prices around.

WTI futures have traveled through roughly a $60-per-barrel range since January, which is exactly the kind of environment where traders start caring a lot more about execution, rollover costs and whether their instrument is flexible enough.

The contract would be traded 24 hours a day, Monday through Friday. While the contract would not truly last forever, 10 years is close enough that the average person using it would likely not mind the difference in a regular trade.

There is one problem, however: regulators cannot treat this as an everyday exchange listing.

Derivatives that are perpetual in nature undergo closer scrutiny, so Kalshi cannot self-certify the contract as many exchanges can with other products. The CFTC must review the filing on its own merits.

The filing has come at an inopportune time for CME Group, which recently abandoned its attempt to change the rules of oil trading.

CME backed off, while Kalshi is pushing further

CME had been developing an early version of the contract that would allow for trading 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This proposal was met with stiff opposition from the oil sector and regulatory authorities.

The issue at stake was not just whether the traders wanted to trade oil futures on Saturdays. The physical oil market is priced using benchmark prices, and it was not clear if the non-stop trading could be kept grounded in reality.

The CFTC initially blocked the plan, kicking off months of debate. CME eventually shelved it.

Kalshi is taking a different route. Its market would stop for the weekend, but the contract itself would barely expire at all.

There is also history between these companies. CME executives have criticized perpetual futures, and CME sued the CFTC earlier this year over its decision allowing Kalshi to offer crypto-linked versions of the same broad derivative concept.

And oil is not the only regulatory battlefield surrounding Kalshi.

Ohio, 38 other states, and Washington, D.C. have petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to take up another separate challenge involving Kalshi’s sports event contracts. In its October 7th filing, Ohio has supported New Jersey in Flaherty v. KalshiEX, LLC., Case No. 26-299.

The matter revolves around whether the sports event contracts qualify as swaps under the Commodity Exchange Act and, if they do, whether the application of federal commodities law preempts state gambling law.

In the Third Circuit, Kalshi prevailed and the sports event contracts were deemed swaps under federal jurisdiction. The Ninth Circuit ruled against Kalshi and held that the application of Nevada’s gaming law remained intact. The Sixth Circuit also disagreed with the proposition that federal commodities law preempted state gambling law.

Other similar challenges are still pending in the Second, Fourth, Seventh, Eighth and Tenth Circuits, as well as the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.