Flash News

TREE NEWS reports: Fake Firefox browser extensions have been targeting cryptocurrency wallet recovery phrases, while Electrum has patched a genuine-client flaw that could trick users into signing a substituted payment. The two incidents highlight how wallet security checks can fail even when users follow basic verification steps. Details on the scale of the extension campaign and the Electrum patch were not provided.

TREE NEWS reports: A 10-year backtest by BIT found buy-and-hold returned 392% on the S&P 500 versus 166% for trend-following, while bitcoin trend-following delivered 68.4% annualized versus 62.8% for buy-and-hold. Over the past five years, the trend model returned 25% annually versus 8% for holding. Bitcoin remains in an uptrend, with AI financing pressure, cyberattack risk and macro uncertainty flagged as potential reversal risks.

TREE NEWS reports: DeFi has recorded 43 price manipulation attacks in 2026 as of Oct. 21, exceeding the previous full-year record of 27 set in 2022. Combined losses total about $199 million, with the Tectonic case accounting for roughly $125 million. Of the other 42 incidents, 32 involved single losses of less than $1 million.

TREE NEWS reports: Keystone customers say a data breach exposed personal information the hardware wallet maker had promised to delete. The company says it deletes customer data 180 days after orders in most cases, but users on X have disputed that claim. The incident raises questions about data retention practices at hardware wallet firms.

TREE NEWS update: Lightning Labs has opened Wavelength to all users, enabling AI agents to send and receive payments autonomously on the Bitcoin mainnet via the Lightning Network and L402 without per-transaction human approval. Agents can pay API call fees, buy data and transact with other agents at costs below one cent per transaction. Developers can integrate payments without running a Lightning node, managing channels or sourcing liquidity. The self-custodial toolkit supports unilateral on-chain exits, carries an initial limit of 300,000 sats per wallet and a 0.25% Lightning payment fee, and remains in Alpha with stablecoin support planned.

TREE NEWS reports: Crypto futures liquidations across major exchanges totaled $109 million over the past 24 hours, CoinGlass data showed on October 25. Short positions accounted for $63.43 million of the total, while long liquidations reached $45.50 million. ETH liquidations stood at $29.92 million and BTC at $21.76 million, with the largest single liquidation, a $3.01 million ETHUSDT order, occurring on Binance.

TREE NEWS update: European Central Bank executive board member Piero Cipollone said the digital euro would give Europe more “sovereignty” over payment infrastructure and reduce reliance on non-European third parties. A pilot using real transactions by ECB and national central bank staff is planned for 2027, with 36 market operators involved in preparations, including seven Italian operators. Two-thirds of card transactions in the euro area are handled by non-European companies, he said; the ECB Governing Council will decide on issuance after legislative negotiations in Brussels conclude, with launch possible as early as 2029 if rules pass by year-end.

TREE NEWS update: European Central Bank official Piero Cipollone said the digital euro is essential to protecting the EU’s sovereignty, with the bloc on track to test real transactions in 2027 and launch the currency as early as 2029. The timeline depends on legislation expected this year.

TREE NEWS update: Senator Cynthia Lummis said Democrats demanded that annual crypto fundraising limits be cut to $50 million from $75 million and a $200 million lifetime cap be added to the CLARITY crypto market structure bill. She said the changes were agreed and written into the bill, yet Democrats still voted against the rule aimed at protecting retail investors.

TREE NEWS reports: Strive CEO Matt Cole posted a chart of the company’s Bitcoin holdings on X on October 25, with the caption “The sats/$SATS perpetual swap has been activated.” The post may signal that Strive will disclose increased BTC holdings as soon as next week, a move that would mirror Strategy founder Michael Saylor’s approach.

TREE NEWS reports: An unidentified entity whose funding traces to Tornado has accumulated 3,000.5 ETH worth $7.06 million since Oct. 23, then swapped the tokens for BTC through cross-chain protocol THORChain. The entity had sold ETH in tranches at prior highs and bought back near recent lows: selling at $3,109 in January 2026 and $2,679 in September 2026, before repurchasing at $2,353 in October 2026.

TREE NEWS reports: Spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded about $301 million in net inflows for the week, ending a two-week losing streak. Two consecutive days of outflows late in the week kept October net flows negative overall. The weekly figure marks a reversal after back-to-back weeks of redemptions.

TREE NEWS reports: Crypto investor Anthony Pompliano said bitcoin, gold and land are all likely to perform well over the next 20 years, and that the market is significantly underestimating AI’s potential, with quality AI companies also undervalued. Over the next five years, venture capital and public markets will converge further, with more capital chasing a few quality firms potentially pushing up private-market valuations. He said young investors should watch areas Wall Street has not fully positioned in, including private markets, prediction markets, compute markets and data brokerage, and predicted Tesla and SpaceX will merge.

TREE NEWS reports: UK consumers submitted 10,092 complaints through Stand With Crypto’s online tool between May and August over banks restricting crypto purchases, involving 9,800 users across all 650 parliamentary constituencies. Lloyds Banking Group, including Halifax and Bank of Scotland, drew 2,297 complaints, about 23% of the total, followed by Barclays with 1,569 and NatWest Group with 1,278. SWC cautioned the complaints came from consumers who actively used its tool and are not a representative survey of bank customers.

TREE NEWS reports: Falcon Finance (FF) will unlock about 208 million tokens on October 29 at 9:00 p.m. Beijing time, equal to 6.62% of circulating supply and worth roughly $20.7 million, Token Unlocks data show. Collector Crypt (CARDS) will release about 59.26 million tokens on October 30 at 3:00 a.m. Beijing time, 9.60% of circulating supply and worth about $18.4 million, while Sui (SUI) will unlock about 13.15 million tokens on November 1 at 8:00 a.m. Beijing time, 0.32% of supply and worth about $12 million.

TREE NEWS update: Human activity can weaken the stability of slopes in large lake deltas, increasing the risk of destructive tsunamis triggered by earthquakes, according to an international research team that included scientists from France’s National Centre for Scientific Research. The findings were published in the journal Nature Communications, the centre said in a bulletin.

TREE NEWS reports: Galaxy Research said roughly 40 inscriptions made of random letters have appeared daily on the Bitcoin network over the past three weeks, but the text is not encrypted information. Analyzing 562 such texts, the firm found all 26 English letters appeared at frequencies between 3.6% and 4.2%, a distribution clearly different from normal English. On-chain behavior also shows automation, with transactions typically containing one input, a new change address and an OP_RETURN output, forming chains as long as 86 transactions.