Liam Wright
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Not every story has 2 sides, some have 5, others only 1 | EIC @CryptoSlate | Techno-Progressive Decentralist Libertarian | Opinions my own
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Articles by Liam Wright
Bitcoin apps risk massive fee drain, and 2 library bugs are blamed
01 Bitcoinjs-lib's Oct. 26 advisories identify fee-accounting fixes in versions 5.2.2, 6.1.9 and 7.0.4 for the corresponding release lines. 02 Conflicting or missing input-value records can understate miner fees and defeat safeguards when applications trust the vulnerable library's accounting. 03 Actual loss requires an authorized, valid transaction to be broadcast and accepted; maintainers should upgrade or independently verify input values.
01 BNY now supports XRP and RLUSD custody for eligible institutional clients, adding another route to hold and transfer the tokens. 02 Ripple's announcement discloses no XRP custody balance or new purchase, leaving additional acquisitions as the test of incremental demand. 03 C2FO plans RLUSD settlement on XRPL through a limited rollout, with a waitlist and US-only access at launch.
X100 governance flaws trigger $6M loss due to a flash loan
01 X100’s attacker gained two Senate seats and repaid its flash loan while the purchased stake remained locked for a year. 02 Arkadiko’s roughly five-day ballot admitted late token purchases, then activated a malicious contract without a separate execution delay. 03 Arkadiko restored its legitimate contract entry on Oct. 27, but that change alone does not establish recovered collateral or compensation.
Polymarket reforms Bitcoin contracts and Binance trading spikes immediately drop
01 Polymarket’s five-minute Bitcoin markets have used 60-second averages for both opening and closing benchmarks since Aug. 14. 02 Wang’s early post-change sample found the earlier Binance settlement-time pattern subsided, without measuring current wallet losses. 03 Historical wallet gains cannot establish current exposure or combined strategy profits after underlying-market trades and execution costs. Polymarket’s five-minute Bitcoin contract sampled on Oct.
OpenAI claims a cryptography breakthrough. Does that threaten Bitcoin?
01 OpenAI claims an Exponential Time Hypothesis refutation, while researchers are organizing an independent examination of the result. 02 The disclosed SAT speed-up does not establish a practical attack on Bitcoin mining or spending signatures. 03 The Lean formalization covers a weaker subexponential time bound than the manuscript’s sharpest claim.
Lightning tightens invoice rules after reported attack made Bitcoin withdrawals look unpaid
01 BOLT11 now requires exactly one payment hash and one payment secret, rejecting invoices with missing or repeated fields. 02 A developer described how conflicting invoice parsers could make completed withdrawals appear unpaid, opening a route to further payouts. 03 Released lnd versions include duplicate-hash rejection, while a proposal adding payment-secret checks remained open as of October 27. Lightning developers tightened BOLT11, the Lightning Network’s invoice standard, on Oct.
Iran-linked Bitcoin activity fell about 80%, then rebounded during the blackout
01 Chainalysis reports Bitcoin activity in its selected everyday-use series exceeded 75% of baseline by Iran’s 2026 blackout’s end. 02 Cloudflare observed partial restoration on May 26, 2026; its traffic readings use a different baseline and do not measure household access. 03 Offline signing still requires a route to broadcast a transaction, while receiving Bitcoin does not require the recipient to be online.
Kraken opens Bitcoin and Ethereum options to eligible European traders
01 Kraken has opened Bitcoin and Ether options to eligible EEA clients through existing derivatives accounts on Kraken Pro. 02 Options share futures collateral, with portfolio margin enabled by default so offsetting positions can reduce required margin. 03 The separate Unified Wallet remains opt-in; options sellers can lose more than posted margin and may face unlimited losses.
Japan’s services inflation split complicates the BOJ outlook before Friday’s decision
01 Japan’s September services producer inflation reached 3.7%, while the rate excluding international transport held steady at 2.9%. 02 High-labor-cost services price growth slowed to 2.6%, complicating the policy signal before the BOJ’s October 30 decision. 03 Bitcoin funding pressure remains conditional on the policy outlook, yen strength and independently observed deleveraging across risk assets.
Bitcoin simulations show why a return to $126,000 would not last
01 A historical-return model puts Bitcoin's one-year crossing frequency at 50.4%, versus 34.8% for finishing above its record. 02 Among simulated paths crossing within a year, median pre-crossing drawdown is 18.9%, revealing losses a terminal target cannot describe. 03 Four of seven selected historical recoveries dipped below their old closing record within 30 days. Even if Bitcoin could clear its old record, a true recovery would still be unfinished.
Bitcoin simulations show why a return to $126,000 would not last
Even if Bitcoin could clear its old record, a true recovery would still be unfinished. In a CryptoSlate simulation using historical returns, 50.4% of paths closed above $126,198 at least once within a year, but only 34.8% finished above it. The gap was 15.6 percentage points: roughly one path in six reclaimed the level, then ended below it. Those outcomes expose the question a price target cannot answer: what happens between buying Bitcoin and reaching the forecast date?
Public wallet logs expose founder histories, and Zcash group demands fix
01 PGPZ’s Oct. 20 letter asks the SEC to accept targeted evidence without exposing issuers’ unrelated financial activity. 02 The SEC proposal already includes limited exhibit redactions, but broader privacy instructions remain a request for the final rule. 03 Transaction-validity proofs do not establish spending, and PGPZ says material holdings, preferential terms and conflicts must remain disclosed.
Faster Solana slots fail to stop memecoin bot snipers
01 Bitquery found outside buying within roughly 1.3 seconds for 53% versus 52% of new coins in its samples. 02 Preliminary sandwich detections rose to 33 per 10,000 swaps during September 19 to October 7 in the study's sampled venues. 03 Both bot comparisons end October 7, leaving the final October 9 reduction to 200ms outside their measured scope. Blockchain data company Bitquery's latest analysis, with figures verified Oct.
How Optimism’s draft manual silently strips tokenholder elections
01 Optimism’s Foundation proposes replacing Security Council cohort elections with nominations from an elected Lead, subject to individual tokenholder vetoes. 02 Each nominee would face one week of review and one week of veto, requiring 20% of active votable OP to block. 03 The Lead would remain a non-keyholder, with Foundation screening, independence requirements and removal rights constraining proposed appointment system.
3 payment rules control Aave’s native Bitcoin market, but only WBTC settles them Original
01 LlamaRisk’s pre-listing review says Babylon’s proposed Aave integration retains WBTC payment dependencies even when keepers bypass Hub funding. 02 Zero application fees and no borrower surplus still leave WBTC repayment obligations when the borrower’s debt is denominated in WBTC. 03 Published addresses checked Oct. 25 still identify Sepolia testnet.
August updates block critical private key leak in crypto wallet Vultisig
01 ChainSecurity disclosed a historical Vultisig ECDSA flaw requiring one compromised signer and many malicious signing messages. 02 August Android and iOS changes stopped malicious-party retries and appeared in repository releases, without establishing complete remediation. 03 The published changes leave protection across restarted sessions unverified.
Treasury dealers’ net bill holdings hit a two-year high as October 30 funding pressure nears
01 FHLBNY reports dealers’ net Treasury-bill holdings at a two-year high as money funds redirect some cash into short repo. 02 SOFR reached 3.9% for October 22, while FHLBNY flags Canadian bank year-end on October 30 as a forthcoming pressure. 03 Coinbase reports rebuilding Bitcoin leverage, while Treasury-to-crypto spillover still needs evidence linking dealers to borrowers.
01 Circle added cirBTC to Gateway, giving holders one deposited balance usable on Ethereum and Arc. 02 Circle’s advertised sub-500ms access starts after deposit finality; the separate API-independent withdrawal route takes seven days. 03 Gateway integration is permissionless, while minting and redeeming cirBTC for native Bitcoin through Circle Mint require qualified-business access. Circle added its Bitcoin-backed token, cirBTC, to Gateway on Oct.
Circle gives its Bitcoin-backed token one balance across Ethereum and Arc
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Bitcoin faces an inflation warning beneath steady US consumer sentiment
01 Michigan’s October 23 study finds long-run inflation expectations and uncertainty above comparable 2019 and 2024 ranges. 02 Final inflation expectations were 4.7% for the year ahead and 3.5% longer term, matching preliminary October readings. 03 Fed participants judged medium- and longer-term inflation expectations consistent with their 2% objective in September, before Michigan’s October study. A University of Michigan study published Oct.
Bitcoin faces an inflation warning beneath steady US consumer sentiment
A University of Michigan study published Oct. 23 finds that Americans’ long-run inflation expectations remain above comparable 2019 and 2024 readings. That persistence could complicate easier financing conditions for Bitcoin even as the headline consumer sentiment index barely moves. The concern is that repeated price shocks can leave consumers expecting inflation to persist.
01 BTCPay merged a fix on October 19 to stop broad store-scoped keys from satisfying server or account permission checks. 02 Server-wide access depends on administrator ownership and suitable grants, while key creation has separate endpoint requirements. 03 As of October 26, version 2.4.5 remained the latest listed release and still contained the earlier permission checks. BTCPay Server, software for accepting Bitcoin payments, merged a fix on Oct.
FCA proposes personal-wallet checks in nonbinding crypto guidance
01 FCA draft guidance lists enhanced due diligence for unhosted-wallet transfers as good practice within firms' existing financial-crime controls. 02 The proposal criticizes unexplained third-party risk scores and rigid tracing rules that fail to account for risk. 03 The nonbinding consultation closes December 24, 2026, before the FCA considers feedback and publishes final guidance.
Canada proposes direct stablecoin cash-outs for small holders with a 1% fee cap
01 Canada’s proposal would allow covered holders to redeem any amount, with issuer redemption fees capped at 1%. 02 Daily limits could override ordinary timing when reserve-market illiquidity prevents an issuer from meeting all redemption requests. 03 Circle Mint currently excludes individuals and requires institutions to link verified matching-name bank accounts for direct redemption.
Lido opens larger Ethereum validators with a 32 ETH operator bond
01 Lido activated 0x02 CSM on October 23, opening permissionless access to Ethereum validators with larger effective balances. 02 Operators bond 32 ETH for the first key and 30 ETH thereafter, while Lido supplies validator stake separately. 03 Initial capacity targets roughly 32 seed deposits; activation, cap increases and protocol inflows govern later top-ups. Staking protocol Lido activated a new permissionless Ethereum module on Oct.
Paolo Ardoino wants AI to run Bitcoin mines. Who gets permission to act?
01 Tether announced 15 MDK integration commitments covering mining hardware, pools and software. 02 The v0.11 reference agent pauses device actions for approval, while site operators must establish who may approve. 03 MDK's core team controls releases; deployed versions and site access policies determine which equipment-command checks apply. Paolo Ardoino's push to bring AI into Bitcoin mining has a human decision at its center: who may authorize a machine to change what it is doing?
Initia hack drove its USDC bridge reserve down to $63 as withdrawals failed
01 Bitquery linked failed USDC exits to depleted reserves backing balances on Initia after the October 23 exploit. 02 Bitquery distinguished about $3 million paid from reserves from roughly $7 million in unauthorized balances at face value. 03 @initia said on October 24 that a patch and audit were expected within days, with asset recovery ongoing.
Firedancer makes bounty hunters burn 1 SOL even for duplicate bug reports
01 Firedancer requires a non-refundable 1 SOL burn for bounty eligibility, including duplicate, invalid and out-of-scope reports. 02 The spring contest allowed eligible duplicate rewards, while current terms generally favor the first submission and retain discretionary exceptions. 03 Bhatt linked historical duplicates to slow review; the current 96-hour expectation covers initial contact and establishes no fix deadline.
Circle’s new USDC auctions let institutions collect the fees others pay to cash out
01 Circle Match pairs eligible institutions’ USDC mint and redemption orders in hourly, prefunded auctions. 02 Matched redeemers fund mint rebates, with clearing fees capped at the customer's maximum and Circle's Express rate. 03 Matching and fee savings are not guaranteed, while dollar payouts remain subject to U.S. banking hours.
New York demands $1.3B from NovaTech and 11,000 victims face delay Original
01 New York’s Oct. 22 motion seeks $1.37 billion for the NovaTech fraud after a 2025 liability ruling. 02 Nearly $6 million in separate promoter obligations does not establish money already distributed to NovaTech and AWS Mining victims. 03 Ciceron’s cash terms include four $125,000 installments through 2029, with state deadlines distinct from victim payout dates. New York Attorney General Letitia James asked a state court on Oct.
3.3M users gain HSBC RedCoin, yet 1 strict rule blocks them
01 HSBC began rolling out RedCoin through PayMe on Oct. 23, with wallet activation extending over the coming days. 02 PayMe’s more than 3.3 million users and over 100,000 merchants describe potential distribution. 03 RedCoin is redeemable for HKD under HSBC’s terms, while investment access remains planned and transfers between the app wallets are unsupported. HSBC began rolling out RedCoin (RCHKD), its Hong Kong dollar stablecoin, on Oct.
New OCC stablecoin rule resets redemptions, and banks face big shifts
01 The OCC removed the proposed automatic seven-day extension, leaving stress-related redemption extensions subject to regulator decisions. 02 Covered issuers’ ordinary deadline measures payment initiation after qualifying requests, while external bank availability remains separate. 03 Revised confidential PS-01 reports would track unpaid tokens and payment initiation, with implementation conditional on OMB approval.
Aave changes USDT borrowing rules and loan costs suddenly jump
01 Aave implemented a lower 92% USDT rate threshold on Oct. 21, bringing steeper borrowing costs forward. 02 At identical hypothetical 94% utilization, the new curve gives 7% borrowing APR against 4.5% under the published prior curve. 03 The modeled 57.8 million USDT buffer increment creates no cash. Aave has lowered the utilization threshold at which borrowing rates for Tether’s USDT rise sharply on its Ethereum Core market, making loans more expensive sooner as pool liquidity tightens.
SpaceX perpetual futures traded about $6 billion after earnings
01 Talos reported about $6 billion in SpaceX perpetual turnover across Binance and Hyperliquid after earnings, over eight times the prior day. 02 Talos reported Binance open interest fell about 8% after earnings, even as SpaceX-linked perpetual trading surged. 03 Fees depend on the venue, trader tier and market settings. Hyperliquid's assistance fund converts its own receipts to HYPE and burns the tokens.
Evernorth’s $132 million funding option could buy more XRP while reducing XRP per share
01 Evernorth’s October 19 effective registration covers public warrants that could raise $132 million if fully exercised for cash. 02 A conditional common-pool model needs roughly 70% of gross exercise cash allocated to XRP at the dated $1.32 price. 03 Actual XRP-per-share accretion still requires current ownership and holdings figures, cash exercise receipts and executed token purchases.
Tether’s own AI study shows when buying a laptop costs more than cloud tokens
01 Tether joined Tenstorrent’s closed Series E, extending its AI infrastructure strategy without disclosing its individual investment. 02 Under QVAC’s assumptions, dense-model capacity is 55 million tokens per working month, below the calculated Singapore cloud break-even. 03 Existing device owners avoid a new purchase hurdle, while sustained users still need suitable models and enough usable throughput.
Coinbase Ireland’s cash safeguards fell €5 million short before 2024 fix
01 Coinbase Ireland’s safeguarding shortfall peaked at about €5 million in 2024, according to a newly disclosed Irish settlement. 02 The regulator found no evidence of actual consumer harm, but inadequate safeguarding could have hindered repayments in an insolvency. 03 Coinbase Ireland accepted a €3,252,618 penalty and reprimand, which still require High Court confirmation before taking effect.
01 Murad confirmed Neuner’s $81 million paper-gains roundtrip calculation and said he expected the wallets eventually to reach billions. 02 He described holding for another six to eight years as part of leading by example in memecoin communities. 03 The exchange does not establish an $81 million realized loss.
Old wallet addresses trap CoinDCX users, triggering potential losses
01 CoinDCX says failed sweeping of deposits from deprecated wallets caused losses it absorbed, while affected customers were credited. 02 ZachXBT alleges $15.8 million in user deposits went unaccounted for, a figure CoinDCX did not quantify in its update. 03 A confirmed 15,819,002 USDT transfer establishes token movement, but does not prove wallet control or customer losses.
NEAR proposal slashes yield by 36%, dividing network validators
01 NEAR’s total supply rose by 2.69 million tokens over 30.62 days to October 22, remaining inflationary. 02 HSP-029 proposes a 36% issuance cap cut through a grace period and gradual ramp, requiring ratification and validator adoption. 03 Held or staked buyback tokens remain in total supply, while lower issuance would reduce rewards if participation stays fixed. The NEAR blockchain’s total supply grew by about 2.69 million tokens in the 30.62 days to Oct.
OCC drops proposed affiliate rewards presumption, but stablecoin yield ban stays
01 The OCC dropped the proposed affiliate rewards presumption while retaining the GENIUS Act’s issuer yield ban. 02 Existing rewards programs receive no grandfathering, while the OCC rejected a safe harbor for small yield payments. 03 Rewards arrangements will face review on their facts through issuer applications and supervision, with no list of approved structures.
Railway urges credential resets as investigator alleges $371,000 crypto theft
01 Railway warned customer environment variables may have been decrypted and urged every user to replace stored credentials. 02 On-chain investigator @tayvano_ alleged roughly $371,000 in stolen crypto across at least 19 EVM chains; Railway has not confirmed the claim. 03 Railway invalidated its API tokens and restored builds for Pro and Enterprise, while lower tiers awaited access. Railway, a cloud deployment platform, has urged every user to replace stored secrets after disclosing on Oct.
Bitcoin Core 32 can stall multisig signing on older nodes as fix slips to next patch
01 Bitcoin Core 32’s GUI creates PSBT v2 files that older Core co-signers reportedly cannot import. 02 Maintainer fanquake moved the compatibility issue to 32.1 on Oct. 21, while the proposed GUI repair remains open. 03 Core 32’s RPCs can explicitly create PSBT v0, offering mixed-version users a path around this specific format mismatch.
Bitcoin Core 32 can stall multisig signing on older nodes as fix slips to next patch
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A Midnight privacy-vault demo needs outside signers to release Ethereum tokens
01 SIG’s experimental Ethereum vault burns a shielded claim before payout, leaving withdrawal completion dependent on its signing service. 02 Failed transfers restore the shielded claim only after a verified outcome; an unanswered service does not meet that refund condition. 03 Hoskinson welcomed Tron; SIG targets December 2026, while its Ethereum integration remains on stagenet.
Binance moves to exclude disrupted overnight data from stock-futures funding
01 Binance announced that affected overnight premium observations would be excluded from its October 21 US-equity perpetual funding calculation. 02 Funding transfers run between opposing traders, so the adjustment concerns payment inputs rather than stock-token collateral valuation. 03 Binance disclosed no resulting funding rates or payment totals for individual traders.
Qubic’s recovery rules require ownership checks even for unstolen funds in vulnerable wallets
01 Qubic’s October 21 core release updates frozen addresses in a recovery design covering listed wallets whose funds were never stolen. 02 Claims require ownership evidence beyond a signature, with developer review and recovery decided and applied by the computor quorum. 03 Approved claims face a seven-day public listing before payout; unresolved competing claims remain frozen in escrow.
SideSwap reopens Bitcoin swaps while Liquid reserves stay locked
01 SideSwap reports about 600 peg-outs and more than 60 BTC paid since its Oct. 20 reopening. 02 SideSwap funds payouts from its own Bitcoin wallet, with partly manual refills able to leave payments queued. 03 Direct Federation withdrawals remain restricted pending full Bitcoin backing and completion of security and operational recovery requirements. SideSwap, a swap provider on the Liquid Network, has reopened conversions from the synthetic Bitcoin token L-BTC into Bitcoin.
OCC waiver rule puts active stablecoin issuers on notice
01 Existing US stablecoin issuers awaiting OCC approval need a granted waiver to continue issuing from Jan. 18, 2027. 02 Waivers can last no more than 12 months from the effective date and do not automatically excuse other requirements. 03 As of Oct. 21, the OCC had not opened application or waiver intake, which awaits final OMB approval. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) outlined a waiver route on Oct.
Why earning XRP yield through this wallet could actually cost you money
01 Xaman’s hypothetical example puts break-even near 15 months for a first-time 100 XRP deposit after entry and redemption costs. 02 Clearstar’s earnXRP vault lists 0.75% management fees, while its 1.18% trailing APY includes discounted vested rewards. 03 A vault withdrawal still leaves FXRP-to-XRP redemption costs, while unconverted rewards remain separate from spendable XRP.
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