Flash News

TREE NEWS update: Solana is scheduled to activate its Alpenglow consensus upgrade on Oct. 21 at epoch 1064, replacing TowerBFT with the Votor voting engine. Developed by Anza over roughly 18 months, the upgrade aims to cut on-chain finality from about 12.8 seconds to 100–150 milliseconds and free roughly 75% of block space previously used by vote transactions. More than 90% of validators have met the switch requirements.

TREE NEWS reports: An address tagged “Drift Exploiter 1” has moved a fresh batch of stolen funds into Tornado Cash, transferring about 18,800 ETH valued at roughly $46 million as of the monitoring time. The transfers were flagged by on-chain tracking, with the funds routed through the mixing service in a new round of laundering activity tied to the Drift exploit.

TREE NEWS update: PancakeSwap has opened voting on ‘The Flip,’ a proposal that retains CAKE buybacks funded by non-stablecoin protocol fees and phases in a roughly 69% cut in effective daily emissions. The final plan ties the emissions reduction to a CAKE supply condition. A vote outcome has not been disclosed.

TREE NEWS reports: Papertrade, a synthetic perpetuals venue on HyperEVM launched October 10, saw traders net lose $63.2 million in its first 212 hours, with $54.1 million (86%) distributed to PAPER stakers, IOSG data through October 19 shows. About 23,000 addresses deposited $335 million and $249 million was realized in losing closes. A Paragon HIP-3 perpetual on Hyperliquid priced PAPER at $0.024, implying a $211 million market cap on 8.69 billion tokens.

TREE NEWS update: MoonPay and Dunamu, the parent company of South Korean exchange Upbit, are exploring a collaboration on stablecoin payments, the two companies said. They also plan to look at ways to broaden global access to Dunamu’s Ethereum Layer 2 network, GIWA. No financial terms or timeline for the partnership were disclosed.

TREE NEWS reports: A single whale bought 500 end-of-month bitcoin bull call spreads with strikes at $90,000 and $95,000, Greeks.live research analyst Adam said. With more than a week left before monthly expiry, the current mini-bull run has entered a quiet phase, with most trading built around range-bound expectations. The directional bet is unusual recently, suggesting the whale may be positioning for a move in the final days of the month.

TREE NEWS update: OpenSea has opened its mobile app to all users, enabling trading of meme coins, art, trading cards and perpetual contracts across more than 25 chains. Co-founder and CEO Devin Finzer said the app adds social trading features that aggregate trader profiles and trade histories from fomo, pump and Farcaster, letting users follow traders, track wallet activity, import wallets to claim profiles and filter by trading platform. Users can also top up via Apple Pay and set NFTs as on-chain avatars.

TREE NEWS update: 1inch Card is being phased out, with new user registrations already closed while existing cards and accounts remain usable for now. 1inch advised cardholders to withdraw or spend any remaining balance by December 18 at the latest. Separately, Asymmetric Research disclosed a Solana governance program vulnerability that was reported July 10 and fixed on mainnet August 3, before the August 24 vote on proposal SGP-0002.

TREE NEWS update: Variational founder and CEO Lucas Schuermann said the firm’s upcoming Pro platform will focus on institutional over-the-counter derivatives, covering options, interest rates, FX and structured products, in an X Space hosted by The Rollup’s Andy. He said Pro aims to automate OTC trading through multi-dealer request-for-quote, smart contracts and stablecoin settlement, and that its business could eventually surpass Variational Omni. Some Pro tools, including options, may later open to retail on Omni.

TREE NEWS reports: Pendle recorded $159 million in daily trading volume, with Ethereum accounting for $121.5 million of the total. The protocol’s locked value rose only modestly during the day, suggesting the volume was driven by trading activity rather than a large inflow of new capital.

TREE NEWS update: Qubic’s validators approved a recovery plan and restarted the network’s blockchain after a $1.4 million hack, with recovery claims now open until May 1, 2027. The move follows the validator vote to adopt the plan, giving affected users a window of nearly two years to file claims.

TREE NEWS update: NEAR has opened a vote on HSP-029, a proposal to lower the network’s token issuance to 1.6% over 24 months following a 90-day grace period. Validators must separately adopt a network upgrade for the change to take effect.

TREE NEWS reports: The North Korea-linked attacker behind April’s $295 million Drift heist sent 25,700 ETH, worth roughly $61 million, through Tornado Cash within two hours. The wallet still holds about $198 million in assets from the exploit. The transfer marks one of the largest single laundering batches tied to the April incident.

TREE NEWS reports: USDC Treasury minted 500 million USDC on the Solana network in two transactions of 250 million each, at 03:47 and 03:49 Beijing time on October 21, worth about $500 million. Blockchain explorer data shows both transactions were executed by the USDC mint authority address.

TREE NEWS reports: Eighty-two crypto projects have shut down so far in 2026, spanning DeFi, blockchain infrastructure and gaming, as falling revenues, depleted funding and security breaches force closures. The wave of shutdowns has hit DeFi, infrastructure and gaming projects hardest, with security breaches adding to the pressure from weak revenue and scarce capital.

TREE NEWS update: Extended will require holders of more than $1 of USDT or wBTC in a sub-account to convert or withdraw their assets ahead of an Oct. 22 settlement migration from Starknet to Arc, warning that non-compliant balances face forced closure. The exchange’s notices, however, give conflicting deadlines for the move, leaving users uncertain about the exact cutoff.

TREE NEWS reports: Ethereum’s staked supply reached a record 43.8 million ETH, Bitwise said, while the network’s gross annualized staking yield fell to 2.63% from 2.81%. Solana also recorded higher stake alongside lower staking returns.

TREE NEWS reports: Compound’s COMP token rose 27%, outpacing both bitcoin and ether, and also led the two benchmarks over seven- and 28-day periods. Despite the token’s gains, Compound’s total value locked remained below its late-September level.

TREE NEWS update: LayerZero said its Layer 1 blockchain Zero mainnet and trading engine lzATLAS will go live on Nov 30. lzATLAS, the first application on Zero, will start as Open ATLAS with support for more than ten trading venues at launch, with more to be added within the year. LayerZero said the mainnet will initially focus on open markets, while institutions are already testing lzATLAS for large markets such as US equities, with venues integrating trading infrastructure and testing order execution and settlement.