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The Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA) filed a lawsuit against the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) in federal court on Friday, accusing it of exceeding its statutory authority when issuing national trust bank charters to cryptocurrency companies. The ICBA stated that the OCC is implementing "broad new powers not authorized by the National Bank Act," allowing these companies to enter the U.S. banking system without being subject to the same level of regulatory oversight as community banks, putting small banks at a "serious competitive disadvantage."The ICBA is one of the largest banking advocacy organizations in the United States, primarily representing small institutions. Last month, the organization strongly opposed the Digital Asset Market Structure Bill, which failed to advance in the U.S. Senate, arguing that its stablecoin provisions did not protect community banks from direct competition for deposit accounts. ICBA President and CEO Rebeca Romero Rainey stated that Congress did not establish the national trust charter to provide a "backdoor" for cryptocurrency companies seeking to enter the banking system with the credibility of a federal bank charter, as these companies do not bear the same obligations regarding capital, liquidity, regulation, and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) insurance requirements. An OCC spokesperson responded to CoinDesk that the agency does not comment on ongoing litigation.Recently, the OCC has continued to issue trust charters to cryptocurrency companies, but these companies' business models differ from those of typical community banks and do not offer cash deposit accounts that require FDIC insurance. Approved institutions include cryptocurrency banks Protego and Erebor, as well as existing cryptocurrency firms like Coinbase, Circle, and Crypto.com.

According to CoinDesk, informed sources revealed that the custody bank giant BNY is in talks with Payward, the parent company of the cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, for a broad collaboration covering digital assets and financial market infrastructure. The potential agreement may involve areas such as crypto products, custody, wealth management, trading, payments, and infrastructure, with related services provided through Payward Services, which targets banks, exchanges, and asset management institutions.One source indicated that part of the proposed collaboration may be similar to the infrastructure component of the recent agreement Payward reached with Nasdaq. Negotiations are still ongoing, and there is no guarantee that an agreement will be reached; both Payward and BNY declined to comment. BNY, formerly known as Bank of New York Mellon, provides custody, asset services, clearing, and wealth management services to institutional clients and has been developing tokenized deposits to support near real-time on-chain settlements among institutional market participants.Reaching an agreement with BNY would further promote Payward's efforts to connect digital asset businesses with traditional financial institutions. Last month, Nasdaq Ventures agreed to invest $100 million in Payward at a valuation of $21 billion, expanding the collaboration between the two parties in tokenized stocks. Under the agreement, both parties will continue to develop the operational and commercial infrastructure for Nasdaq stock tokens, and Payward will also adopt Nasdaq's market surveillance technology in its cryptocurrency, stock, tokenized stock, futures, and options trading venues, with both parties expecting to launch Nasdaq stock tokens in the second quarter of 2027.

According to CoinDesk, Hester Peirce, a commissioner of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), has completed her term today. She served in the agency for over 8 years and voted against the committee's decisions to take enforcement actions instead of creating industry-compliant rules multiple times, and she was an early proponent of the token safe harbor proposal.Hester Peirce previously led the Crypto Task Force and stated that the SEC's duty to protect investors includes using regulatory authority to provide regulatory boundaries for the rapidly expanding digital asset industry.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Matador Technologies announced that it has issued a total principal amount of $10.5 million in senior secured convertible bonds and currently holds approximately 168 bitcoins. The company funds its bitcoin treasury through common stock and secured convertible bonds.This issuance is part of its $100 million secured convertible bond program, with a remaining $89.5 million available for withdrawal in batches upon meeting regulatory approvals and other conditions. The company's average monthly cash operating expenses are currently about CAD 125,000, and it plans to further reduce this to approximately CAD 100,000. The company's shareholders will vote on the establishment of a new class of preferred stock on October 14.

According to monitoring by Lookonchain, trader 0xd9A2 went long on 2900 ETH with 20x leverage on Aster DEX, with a position value of approximately 7.97 million USD.Currently, the unrealized profit of this position has exceeded 1 million USD, with a return rate of 251.68%.

Darkfost posted on platform X that Bitcoin is approaching the average cost price of two types of holding groups: investors holding for 18 months to 2 years have an average cost price of about $88,350, while investors holding for 6 to 12 months have an average cost price of about $89,200.Darkfost pointed out that the cost price is the average holding cost of the group, not a natural support or resistance level; as the price approaches this range, the behavior of related investors may change, and this area can be seen as a potential risk zone. The group of investors holding for 6 to 12 months has overall been at a loss for nearly a year, with some investors possibly having bought in at market peaks; some investors may sell after breaking even, while others may continue to buy to lower their holding costs.

According to the West Midlands Police in the UK, a young couple experienced a suspected premeditated burglary at their residence in Smith's Wood, Birmingham. On December 13, 2025, when the couple returned home and opened the door, three men got out of a nearby vehicle and forcibly entered the residence, demanding that the couple transfer a large amount of cryptocurrency. During this time, a fourth person provided instructions to the attackers via video call.The police stated that the husband was beaten and seriously injured, while his pregnant wife was also threatened with a knife. After obtaining the cryptocurrency and several high-value watches, the attackers fled in a suspected black BMW X3. Currently, Crimestoppers is offering a reward of up to £10,000 for information, with the reward applicable to information that ultimately leads to the arrest and conviction of those involved.

According to Decrypt, the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control has designated the Russian shadow banking network A7 Network as a significant transnational criminal organization, listing its relevant addresses in Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network has proposed a draft rule that aims to prohibit U.S. institutions from participating in any fund transfers involving the network's "sub-agent companies," covering convertible virtual currencies and not limited to fiat currencies, which is expected to affect approximately 348,000 institutions, including several cryptocurrency exchanges.The proposal is based on six special measures granted by Section 9714 of the Countering Russian Money Laundering Act, ultimately selecting the sixth measure, which is the fund transfer ban. The fifth measure, which restricts correspondent accounts, is considered to have loopholes: research by blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs shows that A7A5 transactions completely bypass the correspondent banking system, which the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network views as a core aspect of its business model. A7A5 is a ruble-backed token issued by Old Vector, registered in Kyrgyzstan, operating on Tron and Ethereum, with reserves held at the Russian state-owned defense bank Promsvyazbank.The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network stated that between February 2025 and June 2026, over 180 entities handled at least $17.91 billion in A7A5, which historically circulated almost entirely through the sanctioned exchanges Garantex and Grinex, often used as a non-frozen bridge to convert into USDT and then into fiat currency.

QCP Capital released the latest market analysis stating that BTC has broken through the previous trading range of $82,500 to $85,700 that lasted for a week, reaching a high of $86,913 during the day, the highest since September 23. It is currently trading around $85,900, up 14.6% from the low of $74,968 on September 15. QCP pointed out that during this round of increase, the annualized funding rate for perpetual contracts was only 5.4%, indicating that the market was mainly driven by spot funds rather than leveraged trading. QCP believes that this round of BTC's rise diverges from traditional macro market signals. In September, the yield on the 30-year U.S. Treasury bond rose to 5.62%, and the 10-year yield reached 5.29% at one point, while gold recorded its worst month of the year. Although rising real interest rates typically put pressure on gold and risk assets, BTC still rose.QCP believes that this market trend is more consistent with concentrated capital trading driven by institutional fund inflows, regulatory catalysts, and technical improvements, rather than purely a currency depreciation trading logic. Regarding institutional funds and regulatory factors, the U.S. Bitcoin spot ETF recorded net inflows of approximately $3.5 billion and $2.6 billion in August and September, respectively. QCP noted that the innovative exemption policy released by the U.S. SEC on September 17 provided a new regulatory catalyst for the market, but since the CLARITY Act failed to pass in the Senate earlier, market structure legislation may be delayed until 2027. Therefore, current regulatory support comes more from the administrative level, and long-term policy certainty remains limited.In the options market, yesterday's options trading nominal amount was approximately $2.5 billion, involving 54 transactions with a nominal amount exceeding $5 million each. Among them, one client sold in batches call options expiring on October 30 with a strike price of $90,000, totaling over 4,000 contracts with a nominal amount of $346 million; at the same time, they actively bought call options with the same strike price expiring on November 27. QCP believes that this operation reflects that some traders are rolling their positions from October to November to position for the U.S. midterm elections, quarterly Treasury refinancing, and market volatility around the December Federal Reserve meeting.On the macroeconomic front, the Federal Reserve will hold a monetary policy meeting from October 27 to 28. QCP stated that after Federal Reserve official Williams said there was no need to rush to adjust policies further, and with the August core PCE coming in below expectations, market expectations for maintaining interest rates in October have warmed. However, the market still expects an approximately 80% probability of a 25 basis point rate hike in December. The U.S. non-farm payroll report for September, to be released tonight, will be an important short-term test, with the market expecting an increase in non-farm payrolls of 84,000 to 93,000, an unemployment rate holding at 4.1%, and an average hourly wage year-on-year growth rate expected to be 3%.On the technical front, the support level of $82,500 has been tested three times in the past week, while $87,400 is the location of the September high and is a key resistance for BTC to further challenge $90,000. The implied volatility term structure in the options market is in a contango state, with a 7-day implied volatility of 30.3 and a 90-day implied volatility of 37.1; the 30-day risk reversal indicator is approximately -2.5 volatility points, indicating an increase in demand for short-term put protection. QCP believes that although BTC shows resilience in a macro environment of rising real interest rates, the market is still mainly driven by capital flows and position changes, and it cannot yet be considered that macro risks have been eliminated. U.S. employment data, Treasury supply, and the intensive policy events in the coming weeks may still trigger market volatility.

According to Cointelegraph, Arthur Hayes stated that U.S. policymakers may support the AI industry and government debt financing by increasing the money supply, driving up cryptocurrency prices. If China shifts from limited tightening to large-scale monetary stimulus, it may also boost demand for scarce assets. He is also paying attention to financial pressures in France, including credit default swaps related to BNP Paribas and the spread of French government bonds.Catrina Wang, General Partner at Portal Ventures, stated that banks and asset management companies have an advantage in on-chain financial markets due to existing customer relationships. Todd McDonald, co-founder of R3, pointed out that public chains can help institutions reach customers beyond their own networks. Justin Kugel, Executive Vice President of Growth at World Liberty Financial, mentioned that the demand for asset management and investment evaluation still leaves room for intermediaries.Chetan Karkhanis, Senior Vice President of Digital Asset Client Relations at Franklin Templeton, stated that the company has no intention of issuing its own stablecoin and hopes to provide investment returns through tokenized money market funds. Haonan Li, co-founder and CEO of Codex, stated that trade routes connecting Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia are driving demand for stablecoin payments, with buyers paying eastward and manufactured goods flowing westward.Ilya Podoynitsyn, co-founder and CEO of FinHarbor, stated that companies need to confirm they have long-term idle funds that do not affect daily operations before allocating cryptocurrency assets. Michael Camarda, Chief Development Officer of SharpLink, an Ethereum treasury company, stated that both stock buybacks and increasing ETH holdings can enhance the per-share ETH ownership, and the company employs both methods to meet the preferences of institutional and retail investors.

According to Gate market data, due to the growing demand for artificial intelligence-related stocks, European semiconductor companies' stock prices have generally risen. Micron Technology reported strong quarterly results, and ASML and ASM International's stock prices rose by 2.3% and 4.1%, respectively.BE Semiconductor Industries rose by 2.6%, Infineon Technologies rose by 4.6%, and STMicroelectronics rose by 2.7%.

According to The Block, the European Central Bank has proposed three models for introducing central bank digital currency on the blockchain, including direct issuance, establishing bridging mechanisms, and implementation through private intermediaries.These models can provide settlement support for transactions such as tokenized securities, bank deposits, and stablecoins on distributed ledger technology networks.

According to the market intelligence platform Liquid24/7.xyz, the current price of BTC is approximately $86,199. The Binance perpetual near-end sell orders are about $62.71 million, and buy orders are about $40.03 million, with a net sell order surplus of about $22.67 million; Binance spot sell orders are about $11.80 million, and buy orders are about $8.18 million, with a net sell order surplus of about $3.62 million; Coinbase spot buy orders are about $10.98 million, and sell orders are about $9.28 million, with a net buy order surplus of about $1.71 million.OKX perpetual buy orders are about $15.84 million, and sell orders are about $9.94 million, with a net buy order surplus of about $5.90 million; Hyperliquid perpetual sell orders are about $10.98 million, and buy orders are only about $0.58 million, with a net sell order surplus of about $10.41 million. The near-end buy orders on Hyperliquid are noticeably thin, and if a large market order occurs, slippage may significantly increase.

Renowned trader Killa stated that the current Bitcoin trend has clearly shifted, yet we are still at the peak stage of the "market skepticism bull market."In the 2023 bull market, if one went long every time there was a sweep below the "established low" (meaning a low that has been confirmed by the market and has shown support), the price only dropped a maximum of 8% below that low; in some cases, it only dropped 4-5% before immediately rebounding.Our current "established low" is 82.5K; based on historical performance, the expected downward deviation will be very small. Killa, as a quantitative trader focused on BTC, predicted the peak of this bull market in May 2025 and has over 200,000 followers on platform X. In mid-April, he shorted Bitcoin at 74,688 USD and turned to long during the market-wide decline on June 5.

According to Coinglass data, the cryptocurrency Fear and Greed Index is currently at 71, down 2 points from yesterday. The average over the past 7 days is 72, and the average over the past 30 days is 67.

According to Coinglass data, the current whale holdings on the Hyperliquid platform amount to $9.003 billion, with long positions totaling $4.239 billion, accounting for 47.08% of the holdings, and short positions totaling $4.764 billion, accounting for 52.92%. The profit and loss for long positions is $537 million, while the profit and loss for short positions is -$580 million.Among them, the whale address 0x5b5d..60 has shorted ETH with a 5x leverage at a price of $2304.06, currently showing an unrealized profit and loss of -$43.1474 million.

According to Cointelegraph, the Ministry of State Security of China issued a statement accusing cryptocurrencies of being used by foreign forces for espionage and money laundering, emphasizing their non-anonymity.Data from the same period shows that Singapore's crypto economy grew against the trend by 55.4% to $284 billion, maintaining its position as the regional leader.

On Thursday, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposed new regulations aimed at clarifying the requirements for investment advisors and regulated funds regarding the holding and custody of client cryptocurrency assets, as well as standardizing record-keeping, federal disclosures, industry operations, and audit requirements. SEC Chairman Paul Atkins stated that the current custody rules primarily focus on traditional assets, and the new regulations will provide a regulatory framework for the custody of cryptocurrency assets.The proposal is open for public comment for 60 days and intends to allow self-custody of cryptocurrency assets and the use of state-chartered trust companies as custodians under certain conditions.

Bitcoin News posted on platform X stating that the Congressional Research Service pointed out in a new report that since 2017, with changes in presidential administrations, federal regulators have repeatedly changed their stance on whether banks can engage in cryptocurrency activities.The report states that Congress could clarify through legislation to explicitly allow or restrict specific activities to reduce the frequent adjustments in regulatory positions. The report mentions the CLARITY Act: the version passed by the House of Representatives would allow banks to use digital assets or blockchain for activities already permitted by current law; the version reported by the Senate committee would explicitly allow 11 types of cryptocurrency activities, including allowing banks to underwrite and trade digital assets more broadly.