Flash News

TREE NEWS update: Circle disclosed that about $1.4 billion in USDC revenue was generated in the first half of 2026, with $819 million paid out to partners and transaction costs and $473 million reinvested. The breakdown details how the stablecoin issuer splits the economics of its dollar-backed token.

TREE NEWS update: Coinbase and Marqeta are expanding their partnership to build enterprise stablecoin card programs that let businesses fund card programs around the clock. Coinbase will hold the balances, while Base, Coinbase’s onchain network, provides the settlement infrastructure for the planned offering. No launch date or pricing details were disclosed.

TREE NEWS update: OKX founder Star said the exchange periodically re-verifies and updates user identity information, with re-verification possible after one, three or five years of account opening or when identity documents expire. He said the practice is a routine KYC obligation for global financial institutions and does not mean an account is abnormal, urging users to update details as prompted. The statement followed complaints from mainland China-registered users on X about second-round verification notices and being unable to close accounts.

TREE NEWS update: French lawmakers have proposed amendments to the 2027 budget that would extend the existing 31.4% capital gains tax to Bitcoin-to-stablecoin trades, limited to MiCA-compliant e-money tokens such as USDC. The proposals also include an exit tax on those moving tax residency abroad while holding over €800,000 in digital assets, mandatory declaration of self-custodied holdings worth at least €100,000 with fines up to €10,000, and a 10-year loss carryforward. The National Assembly finance committee rejected the revenue section 31-3 on October 9; none of the measures are law.

TREE NEWS update: Filecoin is planning to shift block rewards toward paid storage under FIP-0118. The proposal reduces the consensus share of each block reward from 95% toward a 50% floor over roughly nine quarters, with any unearned service share burned. The change would tie a growing portion of rewards to storage services actually paid for on the network.

TREE NEWS update: Perpetual futures DEX Lighter said “Options season. Coming soon” in a post accompanied by a 14-second teaser video, signaling plans to launch an options trading product. The platform has not disclosed a launch date, the types of options it will offer, or the product’s mechanics.

TREE NEWS update: Cobo will shut down its Cobo Wallet App on December 1, 2026 (UTC+8) due to a business strategy adjustment, with users required to withdraw all assets by 23:59 on November 30. Accounts still holding assets after closure will be charged a 2% monthly management fee in the original currency, with a minimum of $100 equivalent per month; balances under $100 will be deducted in full. The first charge is set for January 1, 2027. Cobo’s other businesses continue as normal.

TREE NEWS update: Apple executive chairman and former CEO Tim Cook visited Shanghai game studio miHoYo on the afternoon of October 16, spending about 45 minutes with the Zenless Zone Zero team. Cook tried the foldable iPhone Duo as a player, with producer Zhenyu explaining alongside, starting the game on the outer screen before unfolding to the inner display for combat. Zhenyu said Zenless Zone Zero’s optimization for Apple devices is continuous.

TREE NEWS update: Strategy conditionally declared daily dividends on STRC, its preferred stock, as the instrument continued to trade below its $100 par value. The declaration is contingent, tied to the shares remaining under par. No further terms or figures were disclosed.

TREE NEWS update: Chery Green Energy signed an agreement with State Grid Anhui Electric Power Mingsheng Group on October 16, 2026, activating the industry’s first scaled vehicle-to-grid (V2G) operations site. The companies said the launch moves V2G from technical validation into scaled deployment.

TREE NEWS reports: DeFi total value locked fell by $1.34 billion this week to $122.25 billion, while stablecoin supply dropped by $1.35 billion over the same period. Sentora noted the two declines were nearly identical, indicating capital is flowing out of on-chain markets.

TREE NEWS reports: Ledger was contacted about the risks of tampered hardware wallets months before its latest security crisis, former Mt. Gox CEO Mark Karpelès said, questioning the company’s response to the early implant warnings. Karpelès raised the issue of whether more action should have been taken once the warnings were received.

TREE NEWS update: ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) announced a plan to repurchase its shares for between RMB 1 billion and RMB 2 billion. The buyback range was disclosed in a company filing. No further details on timing or method were provided.

TREE NEWS reports: Deutsche Bank is preparing to launch crypto custody services in Germany and plans to extend digital asset custody to Asian financial centers, citing growth in the digital asset economy. The German lender, the country’s largest bank, has not disclosed a launch date or the specific Asian markets targeted.

TREE NEWS reports: Ethereum tracks and updates its state as transactions flow through the network, with computation priced through gas. Smart contracts and token standards make the chain programmable, while other Layer 1 blockchains approach the same problems in different ways.

TREE NEWS reports: New whales held $78.61 billion in realized market cap as of October 15, or 33.06% of the combined whale realized cap, while old whales held $159.15 billion, analyst MorenoDV said. The share is up from about 18% at the start of 2026. New whales’ aggregate cost basis has recovered to roughly $77,000 from about $68,000 in late August, after peaking near $110,000.

TREE NEWS reports: Circle disclosed that USDC on-chain settlement volume topped $36 trillion in the first half of 2026, with minting and redemptions exceeding $315 billion, or about $1.7 billion per day. USDC’s share of global stablecoin transaction volume rose to roughly 77% as of June from 60% a year earlier. Circle booked about $1.4 billion in H1 revenue, of which $819 million, or 59%, went to USDC distribution partners and transaction costs, while $473 million, about 34%, funded infrastructure.

TREE NEWS update: Circle minted 250 million USDC on Solana at 20:21 Beijing time, adding to the stablecoin issuer’s supply on the network. The new issuance brings the total minted on Solana higher, with the transaction confirmed on-chain. USDC remains one of the largest dollar-pegged stablecoins by circulating supply.

TREE NEWS reports: TREE NEWS reports: Polymarket traders now put 80% odds on Papertrade’s fully diluted valuation exceeding $100 million one day after its token launch, a 27% rise in 24 hours. The market resolves Yes only if Papertrade issues an official token after the market’s creation; stablecoins, memecoins, liquid staking tokens and synthetic tokens are excluded. FDV is total supply times token price, measured at 4 p.m. ET the day after listing. If no token is issued by Dec. 31, 2027, the market resolves No.