Cointime reports: A daily crypto roundup is tracking the latest developments affecting Bitcoin’s price, blockchain networks, DeFi, Web3 and crypto regulation. The item aggregates the day’s news on market trends and events across the sector, without singling out a specific announcement, figure or date in the material provided.
Cointime update: BitMart’s founder said the crypto exchange’s security team is “severely understaffed” amid a restructuring, following a fresh hack. Analysts also flagged suspicious transfers potentially linked to the Mercado Bitcoin hack. The founder’s warning points to staffing gaps at the exchange as it responds to the new breach.
Cointime reports: Crypto super PACs spent more than $176 million on the 2026 midterms, but the Democratic sweep of Congress raises the prospect of tougher scrutiny of the industry. The spending figure underscores the sector’s heavy political investment even as the election outcome shifts the legislative landscape. Crypto PACs are now eyeing a “new map” for 2028.
Cointime reports: The digital asset industry is being forced to rethink its Washington strategy after a Democratic sweep of Congress ended a two-year period of pro-crypto, pro-innovation policy in the US capital. The political shift marks a sharp jolt for crypto companies that had grown accustomed to a favorable regulatory climate.
Cointime reports: Australian Bitcoin holders are being advised to consider options including setting up a self-managed super fund, incorporating a company, or leaving the country to deal with a major capital gains tax increase due in 2027. The strategies are aimed at mitigating the impact of the scheduled CGT hike on crypto holdings.
Cointime update: Nasdaq has approved the listing of Canary’s staked Injective ETF, the proposed INJC fund. The fund would stake at least 90% of its INJ holdings and charge a 1.10% annual sponsor fee. The approval marks a step toward bringing a yield-bearing staking product for the Injective token to U.S. exchanges.
Cointime reports: Bitcoin rose 3.5% to $80,500 and ether jumped 6% after Democrats won Congress, with crypto asset manager Bitwise stating that the Binance hack had limited market impact. The gains came as markets absorbed both the midterm election results and the exchange security breach.
Cointime update: Block has booked a $764 million charge for a planned settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice that would defer a Bank Secrecy Act charge, the company disclosed. Final terms and court approval are still pending. Separately, Block’s bitcoin business generated about 2.9 cents of gross profit per dollar of revenue in the third quarter, down from 5.1 cents a year earlier.
Cointime reports: Four crypto super PACs spent $89.5 million on projected races since Sept. 1, with $21.9 million of that backing candidates who won. The PACs were on the winning side in 28 of 30 called House races but only one of four Senate races.
Cointime reports: The official Trump token and World Liberty Financial token were the two biggest losers among the top 100 cryptocurrencies on Wednesday, even as Bitcoin and Ether rallied, following a Democratic sweep in the US midterms. No further figures or price levels were provided.
Cointime reports: House Financial Services Committee Chair French Hill’s race for reelection remained too close to call as of Wednesday afternoon, with control of the House flipping. The outcome will shape the direction of crypto legislation in the next Congress, given Hill’s role leading the committee that oversees digital-asset bills.
Cointime reports: Riot Platforms shares jumped after the bitcoin miner disclosed a $28 billion AI lease and sold BTC to finance its AI expansion. Hut 8 shares sank after the miner reported falling revenue and rising costs ahead of its major data center leases generating income.
Cointime update: Lightning Labs released LND v0.20.7-beta and v0.21.6-beta, which disable Multipath TCP by default to mitigate a critical Linux vulnerability. The company said operators still need a patched kernel to fix the underlying flaw. The mitigation reduces exposure for Lightning Network node operators running the LND implementation.
Cointime reports: Monero relies on built-in privacy mechanisms for ordinary transfers, while Zcash offers both transparent and shielded transaction modes. Neither approach erases the identity records held by exchanges, meaning on-ramp and off-ramp data can still link transactions to users. The distinction matters as regulators and exchanges tighten scrutiny of privacy-focused assets.
Cointime reports: Matt Corallo said Bitcoin’s next soft fork is as much about rebuilding developer muscle memory as about patching four legacy bugs. The upgrade would fix long-standing issues in Bitcoin’s code, and Corallo framed the process as a practice run for future protocol maintenance. He emphasized that the coordination required matters as much as the technical fixes themselves.
Cointime reports: Circle is turning to payments fees and future staking rewards to diversify revenue as its core stablecoin business comes under pressure from lower yields and rising competition. The company’s ARC token sale lifted earnings, even as weaker yields weighed on USDC income. Circle did not disclose specific figures in the material.
Cointime update: Coinbase’s x402 protocol revives the web’s long-unused HTTP 402 status code, enabling AI agents and applications to pay for APIs and data in stablecoins such as USDC. The protocol repurposes the 402 “Payment Required” response as a machine-readable payment request, so autonomous software can settle API and data access directly on-chain. Coinbase has positioned x402 as payment infrastructure for an agent-driven web.
Cointime reports: Strategy’s STRC preferred stock rose above $100 for the first time since May, recovering to the company’s stated minimum price for new issuance. The rebound follows roughly $2.25 billion of buybacks of the instrument. The move brings STRC back to the threshold Strategy has set for issuing additional shares.
Cointime update: Stripe has launched a public preview allowing US businesses to send stablecoins to wallets in more than 160 markets, funded from a Treasury balance. The service supports USDC and Open USD, but businesses in New York are excluded from the rollout.
Cointime update: A Polygon governance proposal calls for a hard fork to recover 70.49 million POL tied to the Polymarket and Binance incidents, with the funds to be routed to recovery wallets. The plan would not alter POL’s total supply.