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 update: Hongguo Short Drama announced it will phase out its gold coin feature in stages. Starting Nov. 1, 2026, the feature will no longer be offered to new users, and it will be fully discontinued by the end of December 2026. The notice did not specify a reason for the move or say how existing coin balances would be handled.

TREE NEWS reports: US spot Ether ETFs have recorded $1.08 billion in net outflows so far in October, the largest monthly outflow of 2026, as Bitcoin ETF inflows slowed following Monday’s spike. The figures cover flows through the month to date.

TREE NEWS update: Security researcher Bürgel warned that exploits targeting PHP are circulating ahead of critical patches scheduled for release at 10 a.m. ET. Security advisories urged operators to restrict exposed services and prepare to patch immediately. The warning comes as PHP prepares to ship fixes for the vulnerabilities.

TREE NEWS update: Honor unveiled its WIN2 series on October 21, with the WIN RT2 carrying a 12,070mAh Qinghai Lake battery and the standard WIN2 a 10,100mAh cell. Both phones feature 185Hz refresh-rate screens. The company also launched the WIN tablet, which packs a 10,000mAh battery and debuts a 240Hz display, a first for the industry.

TREE NEWS update: Binance launched its “Binance Pick” prediction activity on its main site at 8 a.m. today, with a prize pool that has reached $1 million, including a $100,000 weekly leaderboard, a $500,000 monthly leaderboard and a $100,000 participation pool. Separately, Web3 AI development platform NoahAI said its Season 0 points campaign is live, offering 100 points for daily check-ins and 2,600 points for three social quests.

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: NSCALE’s chief executive said the company’s contract revenue has exceeded $100 billion, without specifying the period covered or how the figure was calculated. The disclosure gives an unusually large revenue claim for the company but no further financial detail was provided.

TREE NEWS update: SlowMist is urging crypto platforms to prepare for critical PHP security fixes ahead of patches scheduled for release at 10 a.m. ET on Oct. 21. The affected PHP versions and technical details will be published alongside the patch release. The blockchain security firm advised crypto businesses to get ready for the update before the fixes become public.

TREE NEWS update: Major technology companies have moved to block eight digital certificates issued by Indian certificate authority eMudhra after a private key generation flaw allowed attackers to guess keys and forge HTTPS certificates for any website. The flaw meant anyone could derive the private keys, enabling fake sites to appear legitimate. The block affects certificates that could be used to impersonate any domain.

TREE NEWS update: China’s digital yuan infrastructure service system has been fully upgraded, the National Energy Administration-adjacent announcement said, without disclosing technical details or a timeline. The upgrade covers the e-CNY ecosystem’s underlying infrastructure. No figures on transaction volume or participating institutions were provided.

TREE NEWS update: Binance is seeking US regulatory approval to launch a prediction market business, the company confirmed. The move would mark an expansion by the crypto exchange into event-based trading in the American market, subject to approval by US authorities. No timeline or specific regulator was disclosed.

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 update: China’s Digital Yuan Operations Management Center on Oct. 21 announced a full upgrade of its digital yuan infrastructure service system, launching two core components: the central bank-side Digital Currency Electronic Payment System (DCEPS) and the e-CNY SMART Contract ecosystem service framework. The center disclosed the two deliverables as part of the broader infrastructure rollout.

TREE NEWS reports: A whale that accumulated 80,157.67 ETH starting March 11 sold about 75.03 WBTC and KBTC, worth $6.2 million, four hours ago, with an average withdrawal price of $78,068.55, on-chain analyst Ai Yi reported. The sale would net a $346,000 profit. The whale’s roughly 80,000 ETH position is sitting on an unrealized gain of $30.79 million and has not yet been reduced.

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 reports: A wallet that withdrew 3,000 ETH from Gemini nine years ago at a cost basis of $18.82 per token has deposited its final 1,000 ETH to an exchange, completing a staged exit that began in August 2025. The latest deposit came nine hours ago at an average price of $2,874.17. If sold, the full position would net a profit of $8.566 million, a 151.7x return on the original $56,400 outlay.

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.