Flash News

TREE NEWS reports: A Bank for International Settlements working paper found that stablecoin market growth slows when US bank deposit rates rise, based on weekly US data from January 2019 to June 2025. In the sample, stablecoin market capitalization grew about 15% over a typical 10-week period; a one-basis-point rise in deposit rates cut that to about 12%, or about 6% under an alternative causal method, though the market kept growing. The link was stronger for Circle’s USDC than Tether’s USDT.

TREE NEWS reports: Bitwise research director Ryan Rasmussen said bitcoin could break above $100,000 by the end of 2026, citing institutional ETF buying, continued corporate purchases, inflation and government debt concerns, and a clearer regulatory environment. LO:TECH research director Adam Morgan McCarthy expects bitcoin to trade between $85,000 and $95,000 through year-end, with inflation pressure and Federal Reserve policy remaining headwinds. McCarthy said a return above $100,000 may require markets to lower expectations for a December Fed rate hike.

TREE NEWS reports: Market analysts are divided on whether bitcoin can return to $100,000 by the end of 2026. Bitwise research head Ryan Rasmussen expects institutional ETF and corporate buying demand, inflation and government debt concerns, and a better regulatory environment to push bitcoin to $100,000 or higher, while LO:TECH’s Adam Morgan McCarthy sees a range of $85,000 to $95,000, citing inflation and possible Fed rate hikes. Laser Digital’s Luca Invernizzi said leverage has largely been flushed out and a break above $90,000 could trigger short covering.

TREE NEWS update: Strategy founder and executive chairman Michael Saylor posted Bitcoin tracker information again on October 18, a signal that the company may disclose changes to its Bitcoin holdings the following day. Strategy has typically released Bitcoin position updates one day after Saylor publishes such tracker posts, suggesting a holdings disclosure could come next week.

TREE NEWS reports: Strategy founder and executive chairman Michael Saylor posted bitcoin tracker information again, a signal that the company may disclose changes to its bitcoin holdings the following day, consistent with its past pattern. The post does not include specific figures; any holding update would come in a separate disclosure.

TREE NEWS reports: Strive CEO Matt Cole posted the company’s bitcoin holdings chart on X on Oct. 18 with the caption “stacking sats with double horsepower now,” hinting that increased BTC holdings data may be disclosed next week. The move may mirror Strategy founder Michael Saylor’s approach of publicly showcasing corporate bitcoin accumulation.

TREE NEWS reports: Strive CEO Matt Cole posted a chart of the company’s Bitcoin holdings on X with the caption “stacking sats with double horsepower now,” hinting that increased BTC holdings data may be disclosed next week. The move may mirror Strategy founder Michael Saylor’s practice of publicizing corporate Bitcoin positions.

TREE NEWS update: Cysic halted its crypto bridge after an unauthorized mint of 10 million CYS tokens, the project said. The incident was confined to bridge message processing and minting, and did not affect the mainnet or other operational systems, Cysic said. The bridge remains halted while the project addresses the unauthorized issuance.

TREE NEWS reports: Circle paid $819 million to USDC distribution partners and transaction costs in the first half of 2026, out of about $1.4 billion in revenue, Chief Business Officer Kash Razzaghi said, leaving roughly 7 cents of net profit per dollar earned. USDC settled over $36 trillion in on-chain transactions in the period and carried about 77% of global stablecoin transaction volume in June, up from 60% a year earlier. Circle spent about $473 million on licences, banking relationships, liquidity and infrastructure.

TREE NEWS reports: Microsoft has withdrawn from a data centre partnership with UK cloud provider Nscale in Lawton, Essex, a setback for the startup as it prepares an IPO. Microsoft gave no reason for ending the deal, which had faced delays; local authorities told Nscale the facility may not get power until the 2030s. Nscale’s flagship Norway project is about six months behind schedule, with only 6.4 MW of 30 MW running. Its IPO filing shows about 85% of contracts depend on Microsoft and Anthropic.

TREE NEWS reports: A whale address 0x204 withdrew approximately $2.34 million worth of Arbitrum (ARB) and Uniswap (UNI) tokens from Bybit over two hours, on-chain data from Arkham shows. The move came in the same week that Arbitrum unlocked more than 90 million ARB tokens. Despite the continued token unlock pressure, ARB’s price has risen sharply and held near recent highs over the past month.

TREE NEWS update: Hong Kong police have arrested four people in connection with an alleged scam by “BBB Group,” which claimed to invest in Malaysian agarwood plantations and sold over-the-counter shares and digital assets, HK01 reported on October 18. Police have received reports from 21 victims involving HK$14 million, and the Commercial Crime Bureau is investigating on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud. The company said it would convert OTC shares into cryptocurrency by February 2027, while Hong Kong’s SFC has listed the agarwood investment products as suspicious.

TREE NEWS reports: Crypto analyst Darkfost pushed back on October 18 against community claims that a 20% US stock market correction would send Bitcoin tumbling to $10,000. Such a drop would mean an roughly 87% decline from current levels and about a 92% drawdown from its all-time high, Darkfost noted. Bitcoin has exceeded a 92% drawdown only once, in 2011, while maximum drawdowns in 2015, 2019, 2022 and 2026 were 82.5%, 82.6%, 74.4% and 54.2% respectively.

TREE NEWS update: Ledger CEO Pascal Gauthier pushed back at former Mt. Gox CEO Mark Karpelès over his warning about hardware-implant security risks, questioning his stance and saying Ledger always does its utmost to protect users. Gauthier acknowledged the difficulty of the security work and welcomed Karpelès’s attention to it, but demanded he speak from known facts rather than speculation, adding: “Come on, you’re no white knight, be realistic.”

TREE NEWS update: Police in Bangkok arrested a Chinese suspect alleged to have run cryptocurrency and foreign-currency exchanges for criminal groups through more than 133 accounts, in a case tied to an international crime network handling $75 million. The arrest was announced by police, who said the accounts were used to move funds for the groups.

TREE NEWS reports: Crypto trader Ansem said the investment approach to altcoins this cycle differs from past ones, noting assets such as HYPE and ZEC have at times moved independently of bitcoin and ether even as the broader market weakened. Ansem argued the crypto market is shifting toward valuing individual project fundamentals, capital inflows and actual business performance, making it more important to identify mispriced assets and teams that genuinely advance their projects rather than relying on BTC and ETH trends.

TREE NEWS reports: On-chain investigator Specter shared a post on X flagging InfoFi project BILL as a suspected scam, with the Billion (BILL) token down about 97% from its all-time high. Over the past two months, 17 wallets that received tokens from team-linked wallets deposited roughly 988 million BILL to Bybit, and a separate deposit address sent another 360 million BILL this week, all originating from the project team’s multisig wallet. Total inflows to Bybit over two months reached about 1.35 billion BILL, roughly 13.6% of total supply and an estimated $15 million; the team had previously raised $30 million from venture investors.

TREE NEWS reports: Bitcoin’s price action is tightening as volatility declines and its trading range narrows, analyst Michaël van de Poppe said on October 18, warning of a possible “fake move” below $80,000 before a major breakout. He identified $82,000 as key resistance, saying a break above that level would likely accelerate gains toward $90,000.

TREE NEWS update: Nvidia has denied reports that it has stopped producing the RTX 5090 graphics card. Jeff Fisher, senior vice president of Nvidia’s personal computing business, said at an event in Taipei that the RTX 5090 remains a core product for the company and will continue to be supplied, attributing the shortage to insufficient production capacity rather than a discontinuation.