Flash News

TREE NEWS reports: Bitcoin-backed loans allow holders to borrow cash or stablecoins without selling their BTC, using the cryptocurrency as collateral. The mechanism hinges on collateral ratios, loan-to-value (LTV) thresholds and liquidation rules that determine how much can be borrowed and when positions are closed. The explainer outlines how these three components interact in practice.

TREE NEWS update: Solana activated its Alpenglow consensus upgrade on mainnet at about 13:54 UTC on Wednesday, replacing the TowerBFT consensus mechanism. Onchain data and the Solana and Anza accounts indicate that transaction finality now takes roughly 150 milliseconds under the new engine.

TREE NEWS update: Two critical vulnerabilities in PHP, the language powering most of the web, allow attackers to take over servers without a password. A patch has been released, but attacks began before the fix was available, and some governments have pulled the plug on affected systems. The flaws put roughly 70% of the internet at risk.

TREE NEWS reports: Bitcoin extended gains to approach $85,000, tagging $84.6K, after US stock markets reacted to higher-than-expected SpaceX earnings. The move came as US equities headed higher following the earnings beat. No further details on the scale or drivers of the crypto advance were provided.

TREE NEWS update: Grayscale has expanded in-kind subscriptions to 10 of its crypto ETFs and trusts, allowing eligible investors to exchange tokens for fund shares without first selling them for cash. The move extends the mechanism across a wider set of the firm’s crypto products.

TREE NEWS update: Dogecoin Labs has launched as a new company led by MyDoge and DogeOS founder Jordan Jefferson, taking over DOGE’s wallet, app layer and payments app. House of Doge is stepping back from those operations in exchange for an equity stake. The company launched with a partnership with the Dogecoin Foundation.

TREE NEWS update: Tencent Cloud’s security center issued a risk advisory after PHP was disclosed to contain two remote code execution vulnerabilities, tracked as CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619 and codenamed “php2shell”. Unauthenticated attackers can send crafted multipart POST requests to trigger memory corruption and achieve remote code execution, potentially taking full control of servers. Tencent Cloud urged users to run security self-checks and patch affected systems promptly.

TREE NEWS update: A team led by Academician Liu Zhongmin at the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, has achieved a new metal-free, ligand-free zeolite-catalyzed olefin carbonylation reaction. The results were published on Oct. 21 in the international academic journal Nature. Carbonylation is a fundamental reaction in modern chemical production, used to make acetic acid, fragrances and pharmaceutical intermediates.

TREE NEWS update: Honor officially launched its WIN2 series smartphones, with the Honor WIN2 and Honor WIN RT2 going on sale immediately at a national-subsidy price starting from 3,149 yuan. The launch completes Honor’s WIN esports ecosystem, which now spans phones, tablets and gaming laptops, alongside accessories such as WIN earphones and game controllers, built out in under a year.

TREE NEWS update: OpenAI said the PHP security vulnerabilities disclosed are among the most significant security flaws of recent years, citing the severity of the bugs and PHP’s widespread use. The company did not provide further details on the affected systems or the number of users impacted.

TREE NEWS update: Solana activated Alpenglow, replacing the TowerBFT consensus mechanism and cutting transaction finality from 12.8 seconds to about 150 milliseconds. The upgrade went live on the network, with Anza developing the consensus overhaul. The change reduces confirmation times by roughly 85x on the Solana blockchain.

TREE NEWS update: Solana has activated its Alpenglow consensus upgrade on the live network, retiring TowerBFT, the consensus mechanism that had run the blockchain since its 2020 launch. The handoff on the live network marks the completion of what has been described as the most ambitious upgrade to Solana since Ethereum’s Merge.

TREE NEWS update: Google Cloud has released updated serverless base images for all supported PHP versions after addressing PHP core vulnerabilities CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619. The Google Cloud platform itself is not affected, but users running PHP on Google Cloud may be impacted. Customers are urged to upgrade to PHP 8.2 or later and redeploy services with patched versions. Gemini 4 Argon assisted in vulnerability discovery, exploit development, attack detection, and patch verification.

TREE NEWS update: Government websites across Europe and other regions went offline on October 21 after two critical vulnerabilities were disclosed in the widely used PHP programming language. PHP developers said they found the flaws on October 20 and urged users to update once patches were available, announcing fixed versions at around 13:45 GMT on October 21. Agencies in the Netherlands and Finland took sites offline as a precaution before the patches were released amid reports that hackers were exploiting the flaws.

TREE NEWS update: Solana’s first major consensus upgrade, Alpenglow, has launched on mainnet, targeting a 99% reduction in finality time. The upgrade aims to deliver near-immediate transaction settlement and more responsive applications for users.

TREE NEWS reports: Bankless co-founder David Hoffman said Zcash (ZEC) will reach 10% of Bitcoin’s market capitalization this cycle and 25% in the next cycle. The prediction, posted on social media, implies a market value of roughly $200 billion for ZEC at current Bitcoin levels. No timeframe or supporting analysis was given.

TREE NEWS update: OKX will list an AXISUSD-denominated X-Perp contract on its web, app and API platforms, with trading set to open on Oct. 21, 2026 at 22:30 (UTC+8). The exchange announced the listing in an official notice. AXISUSD UM (X-Perp) will be available across all three channels from the stated start time.

TREE NEWS reports: CertiK warned that crypto trading bots and exchange apps may remain exposed to vulnerabilities tied to eight certificates issued by Indian certificate authority eMudhra, even after Google, Apple and Microsoft blocked them, since browser fixes may not cover software using independent security systems. Peiyu Wang, CertiK’s senior director of digital asset security, said attackers could use the compromised certificates to impersonate exchanges, wallet interfaces and APIs and swap deposit addresses, though such attacks also require intercepting or redirecting network traffic.

TREE NEWS update: Russia will require individuals to conduct peer-to-peer digital asset trades through licensed brokers or registered exchanges starting July 1, 2027, and will restrict transfers from regulated digital asset accounts to personal non-custodial wallets. Non-qualified investors must pass a knowledge test and will be capped at 300,000 rubles in annual digital asset purchases per intermediary. Using bitcoin and other digital assets to pay for goods and services remains prohibited in Russia.

TREE NEWS reports: CertiK warned that crypto trading bots and exchange applications may still be exposed to the eMudhra certificate flaw even after Big Tech browser fixes, because those patches may not protect all software. The security firm said browser-level updates do not necessarily cover the non-browser programs that bots and exchange apps rely on.