Binance disclosed a security breach on Oct. 29 affecting approximately $6.3 billion, with partners freezing roughly $3 billion in assets. The exchange said it would cover customer losses through its SAFU fund and company resources. A preliminary investigation pointed to a compromised DevOps engineer’s laptop that may have enabled unauthorized withdrawals, while Binance said it found no evidence that wallet private keys leaked. TRM Labs attributed the attack to North Korea’s TraderTraitor group, but Binance had not confirmed that assessment.
The Federal Reserve held its benchmark range at 3.75%–4.00% on Oct. 28, following September’s quarter-point increase. Lisa Cook and Beth Hammack opposed the pause, favoring another 25-basis-point hike in a 10–2 decision. Policymakers described economic growth as strong and inflation as elevated. Bitcoin traded near $80,800 at the time of the announcement.
CFTC Chairman Mike Selig said the regulator was developing voluntary federal registration for crypto exchanges using existing powers while Congress had yet to enact market-structure legislation. The consultation concerns leveraged, margined, or financed retail crypto transactions, with safeguards addressing listings, customer funds, and conflicts. Comments are due Dec. 14.
Separately, Monad co-founder Keone Hon urged crypto teams to make security their top priority, sharing operational-security guidance and promoting the foundation’s open-source Ultrafuzz tool. The OpSec guide covers phishing, credential management, employee devices, and third-party account permissions. It cites ChainLight’s Lumos tracker, which recorded $3.31 billion in exploited value from control hijacking, compared with $983 million from smart-contract vulnerabilities, from January 2023 to the reporting cutoff. “In this age of AI-empowered attackers, the only way forward for our industry is to continue hardening,” Hon wrote. “Security should be every team’s top focus.”
Coinbase reported third-quarter revenue of $1.22 billion, down 35% year over year, alongside $719 million in net income. Unrealized cryptocurrency investment gains contributed $715 million, while adjusted net income was $78 million. Tether posted $1.5 billion in quarterly operating profit and $7.95 billion in excess reserves, up from roughly $4.1 billion at June’s end.
DTCC launched a tokenization service for securities held in DTC custody, with 20 financial institutions signing access agreements, including JPMorgan, Citi and Fidelity Investments. Stellar integration is expected in the first half of 2027. ICE partnered with trade[XYZ] to develop a regulated U.S. perpetual futures venue on Hyperliquid and make a strategic investment. The proposed market would support round-the-clock trading across several asset classes, with launch subject to CFTC approval and no launch date announced. U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs collected $440.8 million across Oct. 26–29, with BlackRock’s IBIT accounting for $410.6 million.
Aviva Investors launched a tokenized share class of its £22 billion Sterling Liquidity Fund on the XRP Ledger, investing £50 million. CoinDCX acknowledged losing 15.99 million USDT through old wallet infrastructure and said it absorbed the loss. HTX settled its financial promotions case with the FCA, while Zcash developers proposed redirecting Zcash Community Grants’ 8% block subsidy allocation into a development and legal defense lockbox. The draft would require a 50,000 ZEC treasury donation within 30 days of community acceptance, with future funding redirects requiring a network upgrade after NU7.
