gm 31/10

Summary
gm, The Federal Reserve's 25 basis point interest rate cut failed to boost prices as Chair Powell dampened expectations for a guaranteed December cut, triggering over $1.1 billion in liquidations as Bitcoin fell below its 200-day moving average. In corporate news, MetaMask parent Consensys filed for an IPO with JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs as underwriters, while Mastercard reportedly entered advanced talks to acquire stablecoin infrastructure firm Zero Hash for approximately $2 billion. Meanwhile, institutional adoption continues to advance with Securitize launching a tokenized credit fund on Ethereum with BNY as custodian, and Standard Chartered predicting decentralized finance will challenge traditional finance with tokenized assets reaching $2 trillion by 2028.

News Headlines
💱 Circle's USDC Overtakes Tether's USDT in Onchain Activity

• JPMorgan reports that Circle's USDC has surpassed Tether's USDT in onchain activity due to investor preference for regulatory-compliant stablecoins, with USDC's market cap growing 72% this year to $74 billion.
• USDC has benefited from its regulatory compliance and transparent reserve management, while USDT has lost accessibility on some European exchanges due to lack of MiCA authorization.

🏦 Flutterwave Partners with Polygon for Cross-Border Payments in Africa

• Flutterwave has partnered with Polygon Labs to enhance cross-border payments in Africa, aiming to reduce the current 8%+ fees and increase speed for global companies like Uber operating in the region.
• The integration will launch in phases, beginning with multinational business clients this year before expanding to consumer remittances by 2026, leveraging stablecoins for more efficient transactions.

📲 Telegram Launches Decentralized AI Network "Cocoon" on TON Blockchain

• Telegram has launched Cocoon, a decentralized AI compute network that pays GPU owners in cryptocurrency through The Open Network (TON) blockchain for contributing computing power.
• Announced by CEO Pavel Durov, Cocoon aims to provide private AI infrastructure for over 1 billion Telegram users, allowing developers to process queries without exposing user data to centralized entities.

🌐 Onchain Economy Hits $20B as Fee Revenue Shows Real User Demand

• The onchain economy has reached $20 billion according to venture firm 1kx, driven by genuine user demand rather than speculative activity, with DeFi protocols accounting for 63% of total onchain fees.
• Emerging segments show rapid growth, with wallet services increasing revenue by 260% and consumer-facing applications by 200%, while Ethereum transaction fees have decreased by 86% since 2021.

🔍 Crypto Security Report: Social Engineering Dominates Threats in 2025

• Social engineering scams constitute 40.8% of all cryptocurrency security incidents in 2025, according to WhiteBit, with fraudulent investment offers and impersonation tactics being the most common methods.
• Technical wallet hacks, including phishing and malware, comprise 33.7% of incidents, highlighting that while technical attacks are significant, most threats target human behavior rather than technology.

Market Metrics

Fundraising & VC
1. MegaLabs (Public Token Sale, $49.5M) - Developer of MegaETH
2. DeepSafe (Seed, $3M) - Universal cryptographic verification network

Regulatory
🏛️ Kraken Leads EU Lobbying Spending Race

• Crypto sector increased lobbying expenditure by 25% in 2024, with Kraken's parent company Payward emerging as the top spender at $323,000-$430,000, ahead of Coinbase.
• The heightened lobbying efforts come in response to the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA), which became fully effective in December 2024.

🏧 Australia Fines Crypto ATM Provider in Compliance Crackdown

• Australia's AUSTRAC fined Cryptolink AU$56,340 (~$37,000) for weaknesses in anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing compliance.
• The enforcement action follows recent proposals granting AUSTRAC new powers to combat money laundering through crypto ATMs, which are suspected of frequently processing scam proceeds.

💵 Western Union Files "WUUSD" Trademark

• Western Union applied for a "WUUSD" trademark just one day after announcing plans to issue a USD-pegged stablecoin named USDPT on Solana in early 2026.
• The trademark application indicates WUUSD may be used for processing stablecoin payments and currency exchange, positioning Western Union to enter the rapidly growing stablecoin market.

🎲 Drake and Adin Ross Sued Over Crypto Casino Promotion

• A class-action lawsuit alleges Drake and Adin Ross misled consumers by promoting Stake.us, a crypto-fueled online casino accused of operating as an illegal gambling site.
• The lawsuit claims their promotions exposed young fans to financial risks and gambling addiction through deceptive tactics designed to mask real-money gambling.

🕵️ Australian Police Crack Crypto "Safe" Worth $6M

• The Australian Federal Police successfully accessed over $6 million from a crypto wallet linked to an alleged criminal by identifying human manipulation in the seed phrase.
• A data scientist discovered that the wallet's recovery phrase had been altered by removing the first digit from each number group, allowing authorities to decode the 24-word recovery phrase.

Technical Analysis
Bitcoin - Bitcoin is within an approximate horizontal trend channel in the short term, which indicates further development in the same direction. The currency is testing support at points 109600. This could give a positive reaction, but a downward breakthrough of points 109600 means a negative signal. Negative volume balance indicates that sellers are aggressive while buyers are passive, and weakens the currency. The currency is overall assessed as technically neutral for the short term.

Ethereum - Ethereum shows weak development in a falling trend channel in the short term. Falling trends indicate that the currency experiences negative development and falling buy interest among investors. The currency is moving within a rectangle formation between support at 3788 and resistance at 4633. A decisive break through one of these levels indicates the new direction for the currency. The currency is testing support at points 3830. This could give a positive reaction, but a downward breakthrough of points 3830 means a negative signal. Volume tops and volume bottoms correspond badly with tops and bottoms in the price. Volume balance is also negative, which confirms the trend. RSI diverges positively against the price, which indicates a possibility for a reaction up. The RSI curve shows a rising trend, which is an early signal of a possible trend reversal upwards for the price as well. The currency is overall assessed as technically negative for the short term.