Flash News

TREE NEWS update: Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said on X that he has not predicted and will not predict that cyber defense will automatically outpace attack capabilities. He expects defenders may eventually gain the upper hand, but the transition will be difficult, requiring deeper methodological shifts such as formal verification and proactively minimizing the trusted computing base (TCB), work that remains at an early stage. He cited this as a key reason for supporting slowing or pausing related technological development and argued more than 1% of GDP should go to cybersecurity, biosecurity and physical-world safety.

TREE NEWS reports: Bitcoin dropped below 84,000 USDT, trading at 83,988.8 USDT, with its 24-hour gain narrowing to 1.31%. The move marks a pullback for the largest cryptocurrency after its recent advance.

TREE NEWS update: The U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency published final rules implementing the GENIUS Act, becoming the first regulator to finalize stablecoin implementation rules under the law. The rules take effect January 18, 2027, setting an access path for banks and non-bank firms to issue payment stablecoins and establishing standards for foreign issuers and asset custody. The final version removes a draft provision presuming certain issuer-third-party reward arrangements unlawful, while the statutory ban on issuers paying interest directly to holders remains.

TREE NEWS update: Robinhood’s venture fund RVI has invested $30 million in Erebor Bank, the company disclosed. The investment was announced alongside a batch of other developments, including the UK FCA opening a consultation on DeFi compliance guidance and crypto asset regulatory exemptions. Lighter also plans to apply for US derivatives trading and clearing licenses next month.

TREE NEWS update: Aero, the combined exchange formed by the merger of Aerodrome and Velodrome, went live across seven networks. VELO tokens convert at a rate of 0.044 AERO, and locked positions become sAERO under the new structure.

TREE NEWS reports: Fireblocks executive Itai Turbahn said the crypto infrastructure firm’s dynamic wallets likely help power bank transfers on Fiserv, without specifying which Fiserv product he meant. Fiserv, which has not disclosed working with any specific digital wallet provider, has said it aims to say more on the matter before the end of the year.

TREE NEWS update: The PHP Foundation said a ‘structural failure’ delayed a critical security fix for a PHP bug that could let attackers take control of vulnerable servers, disrupting government websites and online services. The foundation acknowledged the delay in addressing the flaw, which affected servers running the widely used programming language.

TREE NEWS update: Aerodrome and Velodrome have merged into a single exchange called Aero, which went live on seven networks including Ethereum, Arbitrum and Robinhood Chain. All exchange revenue now flows to AERO stakers, who can also direct the protocol’s liquidity rewards toward the markets they expect to earn fees from.

TREE NEWS update: Aerodrome and Velodrome have merged and launched Aero, a combined protocol deployed across Ethereum mainnet, Base, Robinhood Chain, Ink, OP Mainnet, Arc and Arbitrum. The combined entity spans seven blockchain networks, consolidating the two venues into a single multichain platform.

TREE NEWS reports: Alex Pruden, CEO of Project Eleven, said quantum computing labs have told his company directly that they are not publishing certain results to avoid causing panic, calling it “a fact.” He made the remarks on Unchained, expanding on comments he first made in an Oct. 8 livestream clip. Project Eleven works on post-quantum cryptography for crypto.

TREE NEWS reports: A wallet created three hours before launch minted Kimchi’s coin on Pump.fun, buying 79% of the supply for about $9,300 and designating a single address as the permanent, unchangeable recipient of every creator fee the coin will ever pay. Pump.fun’s own profile page for that address titles it “Kimchi.”

TREE NEWS update: Obol has urged node operators to immediately upgrade its Charon client after a certificate authority key compromise, issuing a patch that updates certificate checks in Go. The protocol’s mainnet cluster balances totaled 422,862 ETH in its latest daily snapshot. Obol did not specify how the key was compromised or whether any funds were affected.

TREE NEWS update: Railway has urged all users to rotate their secrets following a security incident, but deployments remain paused, preventing customers from updating applications with replacement credentials. The platform disclosed the incident without specifying what was compromised or how many users were affected. Users cannot push the new credentials to running applications until deployment resumes.

TREE NEWS reports: Fireblocks says many consumers are already using crypto wallets without realizing it. The claim centers on embedded or white-label wallet infrastructure that powers mainstream apps, rather than standalone wallet downloads. The report does not provide specific figures on how many users are affected or which apps are involved.

TREE NEWS reports: USDC Treasury minted 750 million USDC on the Solana network in three separate transactions between 06:09 and 06:11 Beijing time on October 22. Each transaction created 250 million USDC, with the total issuance valued at approximately $750 million.

TREE NEWS update: Cloud deployment platform Railway detected anomalous activity in the system storing customer environment variables, with an initial investigation showing an unauthorized third party may have accessed encrypted variables and decrypted some of their contents, potentially including API keys, database and registry credentials. Railway said the incident appears to be part of a recent series of attacks on platform companies aimed at compromising AI inference providers, and has notified upstream providers to revoke keys. All deployments have been paused, and users are advised to rotate environment variables, API keys and private repository credentials and review service logs.

TREE NEWS update: The American Bankers Association and other banking advocacy groups are pushing back against the OCC’s finalized rules implementing a stablecoin law, arguing that the changes to provisions on yield undermine US Congress. The groups object to alterations to the yield provisions in the rulemaking.

TREE NEWS update: Elon Musk said he will not disclose further information about a potential merger between Tesla and SpaceX. The statement, made without additional detail, leaves open the question of whether the two companies could combine. Neither Tesla nor SpaceX has announced a transaction.

TREE NEWS update: Polymarket US filed suit against Ohio in federal court on the day the state’s compliance deadline expired, arguing that the CFTC’s Oct. 9 rulemaking and the Commerce Clause place its sports contracts beyond Ohio’s reach. The filing follows Kalshi’s loss in its own appeals case.