News linked to both this project and an event.
Odaily News: Spanish police have arrested a 16-year-old Romanian national in Alicante on suspicion of being the administrator and primary operator of the KillSec ransomware group. Europol stated that law enforcement agencies have seized control of the group's servers and leak site, and preserved at least 110 TB of stolen data.The operation involved searches at 8 residences across Spain, Greece, Romania, and the United Kingdom, investigating approximately 1,000 suspected attacks worldwide, of which about 500 have been confirmed successful. Two other suspects in their 20s were arrested in the UK and Romania respectively, while a Dutch national residing in the UK was indicted and arrested in Puerto Rico, awaiting extradition.KillSec has been active since around 2024, often demanding ransoms in cryptocurrency and carrying out double extortion through encrypted servers and threats to publish stolen data. Investigators are tracing the group's proceeds, including cryptocurrency; Europol's European Cybercrime Centre provided cryptocurrency tracing and digital forensics support. (Decrypt)
Odaily News: The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is investigating former U.S. Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger for using a Kalshi account on a prediction market platform to bet on whether he would receive a presidential pardon. The trades occurred between December 2024 and January 2025.Kinzinger confirmed that he participated in contract trading related to his own pardon and whether Biden would issue a preventive pardon, stating that he made approximately 25 trades, with the majority resulting in losses overall, and that the related trading generated a profit of $823. He denied any wrongdoing, saying he did not possess non-public information. (Decrypt)
Odaily News: The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)'s Division of Corporation Finance has updated its cryptocurrency FAQ, stating that when a network is already functional, announcing token buybacks does not constitute a commitment to "key managerial efforts."The SEC further stated that maintaining, upgrading, or expanding a functional network, as well as promoting the network's existing functionality or making broad visionary statements that do not involve profits, do not satisfy the relevant conditions of the Howey test.The SEC noted that if a network is not yet functional, an issuer promoting token buybacks as a source of income or returns for holders may still trigger the application of securities laws. (Decrypt)
Odaily News: The U.S. Senate failed to advance the Clarity Act last week in a procedural vote of 49 in favor and 50 against, falling short of the required 60-vote threshold. Negotiations on the market structure bill reached a deadlock over ethics provisions related to Trump's crypto business.The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) subsequently introduced a digital asset "innovation exemption," allowing qualifying platforms to trade onchain tokenized U.S. stocks without registering as national securities exchanges. The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) issued a no-action position for passive software providers and submitted a broader crypto market rulemaking proposal to the White House for review.The Federal Reserve proposed requiring stablecoin issuers under its supervision to fully back tokens with safe, liquid assets and hold capital against operational risks. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) is advancing stablecoin rulemaking and plans to finalize the relevant rules by November. (Decrypt)
Odaily News: Ondo has launched 3 tokenized products utilizing BlackRock portfolio strategies, namely the high-yield strategy BLKHIon, the diversified growth strategy BLKDIGon, and the high-growth strategy BLKGRWon.These 3 tokens are open for trading to qualified investors outside the United States. The tokens contain multiple asset allocations, can automatically rebalance, and support peer-to-peer transfers between wallets. Asset holdings, weightings, and information on each rebalancing are all publicly disclosed on-chain.Ondo disclosed that BlackRock does not serve as an advisor, manager, sponsor, promoter, underwriter, marketer, or distributor of the related products, nor does it exercise supervisory or control authority over the products. (Decrypt)
According to Decrypt, the Bitcoin cryptography development team [[alloc] init] has published a design for Shielded Bitcoin, aiming to enable Zcash-like private transfers on the Bitcoin mainnet without modifying its existing consensus rules. The scheme conceals the sender, receiver, and transfer amount through encrypted notes and zero-knowledge proofs, while utilizing Nullifiers to prevent double-spending. However, the current design only covers transactions within the privacy system itself; how BTC enters and exits this system is not included in this design, with the team planning to provide further details in subsequent papers.
Odaily reports: Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic has launched an AI product called Pulse, which allows frontline law enforcement officers to input a wallet address or transaction hash and receive a plain-language summary of fund flows within seconds, without requiring any blockchain expertise.For further investigation, law enforcement officers can, with a single click, transfer the results — including analytical reasoning and on-scene case number records — into Elliptic's screening and forensic tracing tools, or integrate them into their own agency workflows. Elliptic states that the final judgment remains with law enforcement officers. (Decrypt)
Odaily News: Colb announced on September 24 that its digital finance AI agent Colbee has launched on WhatsApp. The product simplifies the use of DeFi and on-chain financial products through conversational interaction, allowing users to explore and access related products via natural language without directly operating wallets, networks, or decentralized trading platforms.Colbee previously primarily served accredited investors and has executed over $40 million in crypto asset and tokenized asset transactions based on client instructions and signatures. Currently, it supports 10,163 on-chain operations across Ethereum, BNB Chain, and Polygon, including 63 product operations, 3,368 swap routes, and 6,732 cross-chain routes, and has integrated infrastructure such as PancakeSwap. Colbee does not hold users' private keys or funds, nor does it make autonomous investment decisions; every transaction must be reviewed by the user and signed through their own wallet. Some tokenized financial products still require eligibility certification, identity verification, and regional restrictions. Colb plans to increase the platform's TVL to $1 billion by 2027, and its colb.finance currently has a TVL exceeding $108 million.
Odaily News: Coinbase has launched fixed-rate loans powered by the decentralized lending protocol Morpho, allowing users to borrow USDC against bitcoin and lock in the interest rate and repayment date at the start of the loan.This product marks the first enterprise-grade deployment of Morpho Midnight, with Coinbase handling the application experience, Morpho providing the credit infrastructure, and the Base network handling settlement.Coinbase's existing Morpho floating-rate loans have surpassed $1.4 billion in active volume, corresponding to approximately $3 billion in collateral. The business launched bitcoin-collateralized lending in early 2025 and later expanded collateral to assets such as XRP and Dogecoin. (Decrypt)
global asset management firm BlackRock has released a research report titled "The Machine-Native Economy," arguing that as AI agents autonomously complete multi-step tasks, demand for onchain programmable payment infrastructure may increase, with stablecoins potentially used for payments and settlement.The report notes that traditional bank accounts and card payment mechanisms are ill-suited for sub-1-cent, round-the-clock machine-to-machine payments. Stablecoins can achieve near-instant settlement without requiring manual account opening or confirmation.BlackRock suggests that computing power could be wrapped into standardized contracts for buying, selling, collateralizing, or automatic settlement on the blockchain. TRM Labs' analysis of $52.7 million in x402 settlements this year shows that AI agents accounted for approximately 0.6% to 7.5% of payment volume. (Decrypt)
According to Decrypt, on September 23, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) Market Surveillance Division issued an advisory opinion classifying “mention-type contracts” in prediction markets that involve specific individuals’ statements, appearances, handshakes, photographs, and social media interactions as products presumed susceptible to manipulation. The CFTC noted that the settlement outcomes of such contracts can be actively controlled by the parties involved, and relevant insiders (such as those holding draft speeches or guest lists) may possess material non-public information. Exchanges seeking to rebut this presumption must provide detailed monitoring mechanisms and risk control evidence, including measures such as establishing restricted participant lists, third-party reviews, and position limits. This advisory opinion was issued approximately three weeks after the CFTC fined former White House teleprompter operator Gabriel Perez $172,000 for trading “presidential mention contracts” after learning the contents of the president’s speech in advance. The advisory opinion is not legally binding and represents only the stance of the division's staff.
Visa is closing a checkout loophole supported by crypto payment infrastructure company Crossmint. The loophole previously allowed users purchasing Meme coins with credit cards to have transactions classified under a merchant category code intended for digital media such as e-books, movies, and music.Visa has notified payment processors, including Checkout.com, that it will no longer accept that code for Meme coin transactions, giving processors a grace period to stop the practice, which is expected to end next week. Thereafter, Meme coin purchases must be processed as cryptocurrency transactions and are subject to Visa's corresponding rules.Chase had disputed a Visa transaction that was not flagged as a cryptocurrency transaction, arguing that its merchant category code was incorrect and that it should not have earned credit card rewards. The New York State Attorney General's Office is also aware of and reviewing the matter. (Decrypt)
Solana shortened its target slot time from 300 milliseconds to 250 milliseconds on Friday, increasing block production frequency by nearly 17%. The computing resources and data volume available per slot are reduced accordingly, while the network's overall transaction processing capacity remains unchanged.This adjustment is the third of four planned phases in the SIMD-0525 proposal. The window during which validators have block production rights for four consecutive slots has been shortened from 1.2 seconds to 1 second, and the estimated duration of an Epoch, fixed at 432,000 slots, has been reduced from about 36 hours to about 30 hours.The next phase plans to further reduce slot time to 200 milliseconds, but a mainnet launch date has not yet been determined, and the implementation condition is that the block skip rate remains stable. (Decrypt)
Odaily News: The Zcash community has decided with 98.9% support to retain the Bitcoin-style halving mechanism, with a total of 2.4 million ZEC used in the vote, representing 66% of eligible tokens. The community also chose to shorten block times to 25 seconds, immediately deprecate the Sprout pool, and limit the scope of the NU7 upgrade to features that can be completed before September 30.ZEC briefly reached $1,388, rising 10.9% in a single day, with a market cap of $22.9 billion, climbing to ninth place among crypto assets by market capitalization. Zcash's Ironwood upgrade was activated in July, adding quantum-resistant transaction records; the token has risen over 2,500% in the past year. (Decrypt)
Odaily News: The UK government has announced that it will invest £500 million over the next three years in a new anti-money laundering and asset recovery strategy, and will recruit 500 additional personnel across police forces, the National Crime Agency (NCA), and the Crown Prosecution Service to track down and seize criminal funds.The funding comes from an economic crime levy imposed on regulated businesses. The UK Home Office stated that the NCA estimates more than £100 billion is laundered through the UK or UK corporate structures each year, with the development of fintech, cryptocurrency, and AI increasing related risks.The additional personnel will support "Operation Destabilise," which targets Russian-speaking networks that convert street cash into cryptocurrency. To date, the operation has arrested 119 suspected money launderers and seized over £25 million in cash and crypto assets in less than a year. (Decrypt)
Odaily Report: Crypto wallet MetaMask has launched new anti-scam protection features that alert users on mobile and browser extensions about risks including impersonation addresses, investment and romance scams, as well as the risk of transferring funds to a first-time recipient address.The newly added Added Protection feature can automatically revert transactions that don't match the transaction preview. It is initially launching on browser extensions, with mobile support to follow. MetaMask also uses AI to identify phishing, scams, and malicious transaction behavior. (Decrypt)
Odaily News: Brent crude was reported at $101.09 on Wednesday morning, up 3.2% on the day, marking its first time above $100 in six weeks; West Texas Intermediate crude was at $96.27. Saudi officials said Houthi militants attacked Saudi oil facilities on Tuesday morning, injuring 73 people.The U.S. Central Command destroyed five Iranian oil tankers the same day, following an attack on three on Saturday, in response to an Iranian ballistic missile strike on a U.S. warship. The crude oil market has been repricing following the escalation of related events.In Myriad's market on whether crude first hits $120 or falls to $55, the probability for the $120 side is 56.5%, up 15.1 percentage points from early September; the market has seen $12.7 million in trading volume since March. Polymarket data shows the probability of WTI hitting $100 this month is 59%, up 9 percentage points, while the probability of hitting $105 is 30%, up 25 percentage points.On Polymarket, the probability of WTI falling to $85 this month has dropped to 39%, down 33 percentage points from the previous reading, with probabilities for all levels below $85 under 10%; the probability for $55 is 1%. U.S. diesel prices rose to $5.94 per gallon on Wednesday, surpassing last week's high, while the average gasoline price stood at $4.22. (Decrypt)
Odaily News: Brazil's cryptocurrency market recorded a trading volume of 505.5 billion reais in 2025, approximately $98.7 billion, representing a more than fivefold increase from 94.9 billion reais in 2020. Corporate-related transactions totaled 497 billion reais, accounting for 98.3% of the total tracked by Brazil's Federal Revenue Service, with individual investors accounting for the remainder.Itaú, Brazil's largest bank by assets under management, now offers 15 crypto assets through its investment app, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and the USD-pegged stablecoin USDC. Fintech company Nubank lists 28 crypto assets, while Banco do Brasil has seen trading volume exceed 11 million reais since opening direct trading in Bitcoin and Ethereum in January.Filings with the Central Bank of Brazil through March 2026 show that Brazilian banks hold no proprietary virtual asset positions, but may custody and process crypto assets on behalf of clients. Since 2025, Itaú, Bradesco, Santander, Banco do Brasil, and Nubank have all expanded their crypto asset service offerings.Brazil passed the Virtual Asset Legal Framework in 2022 and issued three regulatory resolutions in November 2025, requiring institutions providing crypto asset trading, custody, or transfer services to obtain licenses, meet minimum capital requirements, and maintain segregated client accounts, with a compliance deadline of October 30, 2026. Banco Safra issued the USD-pegged stablecoin Safra Dólar in September 2025, with the bank providing self-custody. (Decrypt)
Odaily News: Decentralized lending protocol Pencil Finance has completed the fundraising, disbursement, repayment tracking, and fund return of a $1 million student loan portfolio entirely on-chain, constituting a full financing and repayment cycle. Animoca Brands, Open Campus, and NewCampus provided funding for this portfolio in July 2025.Education financing company ErudiFi disbursed the majority of funds through student loans and tuition financing in Southeast Asia, covering markets such as Indonesia and the Philippines. The portfolio ran for 12 months, supporting more than 6,600 students across 118 schools and universities, with approximately 1,050 students receiving funding directly attributable to Pencil Finance.Investors were split into senior and subordinated tranches — the former receiving fixed returns with priority repayment rights, while the latter earned variable returns and bore the first losses from defaults. Pencil Finance claims this is the first fully on-chain student loan cycle, but did not disclose interest rates, investor yields, default rates, or blockchain transaction records. (Decrypt)
: The G7 cybersecurity working group stated in its latest report that quantum computing poses both a security threat and an economic threat to public and private institutions, and related organizations should immediately begin migrating to post-quantum cryptography (PQC).The working group noted that the migration process could take several years, as attackers can already collect and store encrypted data today and decrypt it once sufficiently powerful quantum computers emerge. Quantum computing could also break digital signatures, leading to identity theft and exposing companies and their supply chains.The report did not mention cryptocurrencies, but similar public-key cryptography is used for blockchain wallets and transaction authorization. Current quantum computers are not yet capable of breaking Bitcoin's cryptography, but developers are considering post-quantum solutions such as BIP-360.Ethereum researchers plan to replace multiple cryptographic components used by accounts, validators, and applications. The Solana Foundation has tested post-quantum signatures on its testnet and launched an optional hash-based vault. The G7 working group also urged governments to support related research, public-private cooperation, and national PQC strategies. (Decrypt)