Investors are adjusting their positions ahead of an important macroeconomic week.

On the 14th of October, the US is scheduled to release its CPI data for the month of September. This report is crucial as CPI rose 3.4% year over year in August, while the monthly inflation jumped by 0.4%.

The stubborn inflation pressured the Federal Reserve into raising interest rates by 0.25% in September. Naturally, this CPI data will affect the central bank’s rate decision in the upcoming FOMC scheduled for the 28th of October.

But why is crypto crashing? Is it simply cautious positioning ahead of CPI? The U.S. Dollar Index (DXY) has broken above 102 for the first time after five consecutive weeks of gains, with the dollar now on track to see its best week since early March 2025.

A rising dollar is often a negative factor for the price of risk assets.

In short, capital seems to be flowing back into safe assets. That being said, it also explains why crypto is crashing. A strong dollar reduces the capacity of other countries to repay dollar debts, thus damaging the global economy.

As a result, investors are selling their riskier assets (i.e., Bitcoin, altcoins) and converting them into safer bonds, which, in turn, lowers their prices.

However, a stronger dollar makes imports cheaper for the U.S., which could lower inflation. At the same time, the market’s expectations for hikes have fallen to 19% from 42% in a month, while the likelihood of no change is up to 80% from 51%.

It appears that the market is expecting the Fed to keep rates on hold for now, with the higher dollar potentially lowering inflation.

Why is crypto crashing beyond pre-CPI repositioning?

According to CoinGlass data, the crypto market saw over $800 million in liquidations in the past 24 hours, with more than $600 million in long positions betting on higher prices.

Notably, the total crypto market cap is testing the $2.7 trillion support level. Considering the CPI data ahead, this can very well be a healthy market reset if the buyer conviction holds.

According to AMBCrypto, this is where the chart below begins to matter. The Crypto Fear and Greed Index has plunged to 57, down nearly 20% in the same timeframe.

This indicates that the market is cooling off, implying that despite Bitcoin [BTC] falling below $82k, the confidence across the market is starting to fade.

Despite fading rate hike expectations and ongoing deleveraging, the market is too weak to absorb the selling pressure, while the U.S. dollar continues to strengthen.

Under these conditions, the pending CPI report may become a critical factor that will set the direction for the market, thus determining the outlook for risk assets.

For now, the ongoing crash looks like more than just short-term repositioning.

Final Summary

TLDR

Ethereum is trading near $2,683, down 0.36% in 24 hours, with about $17.2 billion in trading volume.
Trader XO says a break above $2,720 could send ETH toward $2,900 and the yearly opening level.
Trader Symba sees a possible bullish checkmate pattern, with $2,650 to $2,710 as the reaccumulation range.
CW8900 reports net buying on Coinbase, along with stronger buying on Binance and OKX.
BitMine bought 17,362 ETH last week, bringing its total holdings to about 6 million ETH.

Ethereum (ETH) is trading near $2,683 as buyers try to push the price through a key resistance zone. The token is down 0.36% over the past 24 hours, according to Brave New Coin data.

Trading volume stands at about $17.2 billion. The price has recovered from recent lows but has not yet moved above the $2,710 to $2,720 range.

Analyst Trader XO said on X that $2,720 is the level that could spark another move higher. The analyst’s preferred scenario has ETH reclaiming that level and rotating toward Monday’s highs.

From there, Trader XO sees the $2,900 region and the yearly opening level as the next targets. The four-hour Stochastic indicator is also starting to reset, which could leave room for another push.

If ETH fails to hold above $2,720, Trader XO’s broader range of $2,300 to $2,700 stays in play. That makes $2,650 a key nearby support level.

Bullish Checkmate Pattern Forms on Daily Chart

Trader Symba pointed to a possible bullish checkmate pattern on the ETH daily chart. The setup includes a first move higher, a period of sideways trading, and a possible second leg up.

The analyst marked $2,650 to $2,710 as the reaccumulation range. Buyers defending $2,650 and pushing above $2,710 would confirm the pattern.

A breakout could bring $2,800 into view, with $3,000 next if momentum holds. A clear drop below support would weaken the setup.

Exchange Buying and BitMine Holdings

Buying activity is picking up across major exchanges. Buyers have become more active around the $2,640 to $2,650 area as selling pressure eases.

Market watcher CW8900 shared data on X showing Coinbase recorded net buying in the previous session. That was followed by very limited selling in the latest session.

CW8900’s charts also showed stronger buying on Binance and OKX. This suggests demand is spread across several platforms rather than one exchange.

BitMine bought another 17,362 ETH last week, according to an update posted on X. The purchase brings the company’s total holdings to about 6 million ETH.

The buying adds to the company’s large ETH position. Still, institutional purchases do not guarantee an immediate price rise.

Traders are now watching a clear set of levels. Support sits at $2,650, while the breakout zone remains $2,710 to $2,720.

Above that, resistance lies at $2,800 to $2,900, with $3,000 as the larger target. A loss of $2,650 could open a retest of $2,600 to $2,550.

At last check, ETH was trading around $2,683. Buyers continue to defend $2,650 as the price holds below the $2,720 resistance.

Algorand [ALGO] was touted as a promising real-world asset altcoin that could pump this week. Popular crypto analyst Ali Martinez drew attention to the bullish chances of ALGO.

The altcoin was still stuck below the $0.14 local resistance level. Describing it as a channel, the analyst wrote that a daily session close above this level would confirm a breakout toward $0.19.

Assessing Algorand’s bullish chances

In the past 24 hours, Algorand has rallied 10.1%, with a 41.6% increase in daily trading volume. A handful of other altcoins have made similar gains following the Bitcoin bounce toward $84k on Sunday, the 11th of October.

The market-wide bounce spurred $191 million in liquidations in a day, with $141 million of them being short. Algorand’s share was $141.3k in short liquidations compared to just $19.8k in long liquidations.

Since posting the low of $0.0757 in late July, ALGO bulls have driven a sizeable rally that challenged the $0.1396 swing high from May. A post-quantum roadmap and increased network activity helped fuel bullish short-term sentiment.

A brief price move above it was beaten back, and the altcoin fell to $0.115, but has since bounced to $0.126. While this appeared to be a good outcome in the short term, the daily swing structure was still bearish.

A daily session close above $0.14, as the analyst pointed out, would be a solid start to a trend reversal. The next swing high on the daily timeframe was at $0.19, explaining ALGO’s next target.

Traders’ call to action – Wait for confirmation to buy

Traders can choose a more aggressive approach and buy ALGO soon, or wait for a daily structure break and a subsequent retracement before buying. The latter approach would involve waiting for a confirmation.

The 4-hour structure was firmly bullish. The 78.6% Fibonacci retracement level was tested and has yielded a bullish response. A move above $0.1396 would be the bullish continuation buyers could wait for.

Final Summary

Algorand may be one RWA altcoin that is to have an outstanding week on the price charts.
The proximity to the $0.1396 swing high, which is key for both a long-term trend reversal and a short-term bullish trend continuation, explains these bullish expectations.

TLDR

Robinhood plans crypto perpetual futures for eligible U.S. customers with up to 10x leverage on Bitcoin and Ether.
Eight crypto assets will be supported, with six of them capped at 3x leverage.
Trades will cost 0.01% through the end of 2026, with contracts offered through Bitstamp.
24/7 weekend trading for selected U.S. stocks and ETFs is expected early next year, pending regulatory review.
Robinhood Agents will let users build in-app AI agents that research markets and trade automatically.

Robinhood has announced plans to offer crypto perpetual futures to eligible U.S. customers. The company also plans to launch weekend trading for selected U.S. stocks and ETFs.

The news came at the HOOD Summit 2026 in Houston on Sept. 29. Robinhood said the new products are aimed at active traders.

Robinhood Perps Will Cover Eight Crypto Assets

The perpetual futures will cover Bitcoin, Ether, Solana, XRP, Dogecoin, Cardano, Chainlink and Hyperliquid. Bitcoin and Ether contracts will offer leverage of up to 10x. The other six assets will be capped at 3x.

Perpetual futures have no expiration date. Traders can keep a position open as long as they meet margin requirements.

Users will be able to take long or short positions inside the app. They can set stop-loss and take-profit orders, track liquidation prices in real time and get alerts when a position is at risk.

CEO Vlad Tenev called the product “America’s first true perps” in a post on X. He said profit and loss will be settled every 15 minutes.

Robinhood plans to charge 0.01% per trade through the end of 2026. The company did not share a full fee schedule or a launch date, saying only that the rollout will happen in the coming months.

The contracts will be offered by Robinhood Derivatives through Bitstamp. Robinhood completed its $200 million purchase of the crypto exchange in June 2025. Robinhood Derivatives is registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

On May 29, the CFTC approved KalshiEX’s BTCPERP contract as a futures contract. The agency said perpetual contracts tied to other asset classes should generally go through case-by-case review.

Robinhood already offers crypto perps in Europe through Bitstamp. Those contracts started with leverage of up to 3x.

Weekend Stock Trading Expected Early Next Year

Robinhood is also preparing 24/7 trading for a selected group of U.S. stocks and ETFs. The service is expected early next year and remains subject to regulatory review.

It will extend the company’s 24 Hour Market, which now runs from Sunday at 8 p.m. ET to Friday at 8 p.m. ET. Bruce ATS, an alternative trading system, will power the weekend sessions.

“Breaking news doesn’t wait for an opening bell,” said Chief Brokerage Officer Steve Quirk.

Robinhood also announced Robinhood Agents, which lets users build AI agents inside the app. The agents can research markets, build strategies and place trades using funds in a dedicated account. Manual trade approval is turned on by default.

The company said more than 150,000 customers have opened agentic trading accounts since May. Agents now use Robinhood tools nearly 30 million times per day.

Starting in October, options trading on selected symbols will run from 7:30 a.m. to 4:15 p.m. ET. Eligible margin customers will also be able to opt into up to 4x intraday buying power, up from 2x.

Earnings contracts offered through Cboe will begin rolling out to eligible customers in the coming weeks, ahead of Q3 earnings season. They let users trade on whether companies hit targets such as earnings or revenue.

TLDR:

Solana logged $3.06B in daily spot DEX volume, topping Ethereum, L2s and Hyperliquid combined on October 3.
Solana captured over 36% of global spot DEX volume in H1 2026, nearly twice Ethereum’s share in the period.
DefiLlama showed about $78B in 30-day Solana DEX volume, versus roughly $42B recorded on Ethereum overall.
Memecoin volume fell to 16% from 40%, while stablecoin swaps rose to 19% from 6% over the same period.

Solana overtook Ethereum, its Layer 2 networks and Hyperliquid combined in spot decentralized exchange volume on October 3, according to Blockworks Research data. The comparison, shared by SolanaFloor on October 4, placed Solana at the top of the latest completed daily session.

Blockworks’ dedicated dashboard recorded $3.06 billion in previous-day spot DEX volume and $4.51 billion in DEX liquidity. The result stands out as the benchmark combines Ethereum mainnet with L2s and adds Hyperliquid, creating a wider measure of competing onchain trading activity.

Solana Extends Its Lead Across Spot DEX Markets

The October 3 result follows a broader shift in decentralized spot trading. Research from 21Shares found that Solana handled more than 36% of global spot DEX volume during the first half of 2026.

That share was roughly double Ethereum’s, even though Solana represented about 9.5% of the smart-contract blockchain market capitalization measured in the report.

DefiLlama data also placed the network among the largest decentralized trading ecosystems. Its recent rankings showed about $78 billion in 30-day Solana DEX volume, compared with roughly $42 billion for Ethereum.

However, provider totals differ as tracking methods are not identical. Blockworks only counts trades where both assets appear in its token database. That filtering is designed to remove artificial activity involving unidentified or thinly traded tokens. As a result, Blockworks totals can sit below raw blockchain volume.

Spot Trading Mix Shifts Toward Stablecoins and Tokenized Assets

The trading mix has also changed. According to 21Shares, memecoins accounted for 16% of Solana spot volume in H1 2026, down from 40% one year earlier. Stablecoin swaps moved in the opposite direction, rising from 6% to 19% over the same period.

That shift shows a larger share of activity moving beyond purely speculative tokens. Tokenized equities have also become part of the network’s trading base. Blockworks Research ranked Solana second behind Binance in median weekly spot volume among measured venues during 2026.

Even so, Solana DEX volume remained below 1% of either Nasdaq or the NYSE by dollar value, keeping the scale comparison in perspective. Trade count tells a different story. Solana recently processed about 208 million weekly spot DEX trades, above roughly 189 million NYSE transactions in a separate comparison.

Together, the October 3 lead, higher 30-day volume and changing asset mix show Solana strengthening its position in onchain spot execution. Ethereum, L2s and Hyperliquid still remain major competitors.

The comparison also highlights how dollar volume and transaction counts measure different dimensions of market activity across trading venues. On October 3, however, the daily dollar-volume ranking placed Solana ahead of the combined benchmark formed by Ethereum, L2s and Hyperliquid in this session.

Binance is once again in the spotlight but not for the right reasons.

As of the 10th of October, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has reportedly started investigating whether the crypto exchange violated the terms of its $4.3 billion settlement with the U.S. government in 2023.

This comes amid concerns that its platform may have been used to process transactions linked to Iran and its sanctioned oil trade.

How is this a problem in the first place?

For those unaware, back in 2023, Binance agreed to pay $4.3 billion to settle a U.S. criminal investigation. That was the time when the exchange pleaded guilty to violating U.S. banking laws and acknowledging failures in its anti-money laundering (AM) program.

Needless to say, its founder and former CEO back then, Changpeng Zhao, also pleaded guilty. And this was because he failed to maintain an effective AML system and served four months in prison.

As part of the settlement, Binance agreed to strengthen its compliance controls and cooperate with U.S. authorities. Hence, at present, the DOJ is analyzing whether the exchange fulfilled these obligations, especially concerning suspicious transactions linked to Iran.

For those unfamiliar, the matter is intense because the U.S. has imposed extensive sanctions on Iran, restricting certain financial activities involving sanctioned individuals, entities, and prohibited trade.

And, since cryptocurrencies can facilitate cross-border transfers, authorities are examining whether transactions linked to Iranian networks and black-market oil sales passed through Binance. At the same time, the investigation also involves whether the exchange adequately monitored and reported suspicious activity.

Iranian-linked networks put Binance in the spotlight

This comes on the heels of U.S. prosecutors seeking the forfeiture of $61 million in September 2026, which was allegedly generated from Iranian black-market oil sales.

Separately, reports alleged that accounts linked to Iranian financier Babak Zanjani processed around $850 million through Binance, while suspicious trading by a VIP customer attracted scrutiny from U.S. and Swiss authorities.

These allegations have raised new questions of whether Iranian-linked networks used the exchange to move funds. However, the $850 million figure is separate from the $61 million forfeiture action.

DOJ Criminal Division head Tysen Duva confirmed the ongoing investigation but did not accuse Binance of violating the settlement. He said,

I want to focus really on the positive part of the relationship that we’re trying to build with the crypto companies and tech companies.

What if Binance is at fault?

Therefore, if Binance is found to have breached its 2023 settlement, it could face additional fines, stricter compliance, or even fresh criminal proceedings. But no matter what, a breach would not automatically mean another $4.3 billion penalty.

All in all, the outcome would depend on the evidence, the settlement terms, and the applicable law. So, as the outcome remains uncertain, the investigation could exacerbate Binance’s regulatory challenges in the United States and Europe.

Final Summary

Back in 2023, Binance agreed to pay $4.3 billion to settle a U.S. criminal investigation.
DOJ is now reviewing whether the exchange fulfilled these obligations, particularly regarding suspicious transactions linked to Iran.

 

 

 

 

 

Ethereum’s Glamsterdam upgrade has gone live on the Sepolia testnet, in one of the final major rehearsals before its mainnet activation.

Glamsterdam went live on Sepolia on Tuesday at 1:53 pm UTC, Ethereum community contributor Pooja Ranjan announced in an X post. 

The upgrade aims to advance Ethereum’s layer-1 scaling roadmap with enshrined proposer-builder separation, block-level access lists and changes to gas pricing that better reflect the cost of execution, the Ethereum Foundation announced in a Sept. 28 blog post.

The development marks one of the final testnet launches for Glamsterdam, arguably one of the most consequential upgrades of 2026, aiming to make the Ethereum network more scalable and efficient. 

Following the testnet launch, developers will determine Glamsterdam’s activation date on the Hoodi testnet, before determining the final date of its mainnet launch.

Glamsterdam activation schedule. Source: Ethereum.org

Aiming to improve Ethereum’s efficiency and scalability

Glamsterdam marks the next major upgrade after Fusaka, designed to improve scalability, harden the layer-1 and make the network easier to use.

The upgrade’s headliner changes are enshrined proposer-builder separation (ePBS) and block-level access lists (BALs), which change how blocks are produced and validated to support greater throughput on the Ethereum mainnet.

Enshrined Proposer-Builder Separation, or EIP-7732, introduces separation between block proposers and builders on Ethereum’s consensus protocol, while also separating consensus validation from execution validation, giving validators more time to validate execution payloads.

Currently, Ethereum is running in single-lane mode, processing transactions in a single order. Parallel processing seeks to enable higher transactions per second on Ethereum and bigger block sizes, without raising the gas limit.

Related: Ethereum Institutional signals support for Ethlabs’ motion to reduce Ethereum block times

The second headliner change, EIP-7928, introduces enforced block-level access lists that record accounts and storage locations accessed during a block, along with post-transaction state changes. These lists enable clients to read state from disk in parallel, validate transactions in parallel and compute state roots more efficiently.

In a May blog post, the Ethereum Foundation said it established a 200 million gas limit floor for Glamsterdam, giving the network a major post-upgrade speed boost from its current gas limit of around 60 million.

Following Glamsterdam’s mainnet activation, Ethereum developers will begin implementing Hegotá as the next major upgrade. In August, Ethereum developers started reviewing 66 proposals to narrow them down as part of scoping Hegotá, with several proposals aimed at bringing more privacy capabilities into the protocol.

Magazine: Why Ethereum developers want ‘one-click staking’ for institutions

Crypto scams continue to rise, prompting ACAMS, a global organization that provides training and certifications for anti-financial crime professionals, to take steps to address the issue. 

The organization has partnered with blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis to improve crypto-related financial crime training.

Crypto anti-financial crime training takes center stage

Announced on the 8th of October, 2026, the partnership introduced an enhanced Certified Cryptoasset Anti-Financial Crime (CCAS) certification to help professionals identify, investigate, and manage risks involving cryptocurrencies. 

This was needed because, according to Chainalysis, illicit crypto addresses received at least $154 billion in 2025. Nearly $17 billion came from scams and fraud. 

In fact, at ACAMS’ The Assembly Las Vegas 2026, 79% of surveyed financial crime professionals identified crypto and digital assets as their biggest knowledge gap.

All of this happened at the same time when crypto adoption was expanding across traditional financial services. The latter was also the reason behind the increase in the need for anti-money laundering (AML), sanctions compliance, and fraud investigation expertise.

Remarking on the same, Jonathan Levin, Co-Founder and CEO of Chainalysis said, 

The advantage the transparency of blockchains provides only matters if practitioners have the data, skills and tools to use it.

Therefore, to bring a stop to this epidemic, the updated program includes revised blockchain training. Additionally, it also involves three new courses covering crypto financial crime risks, compliance programs, and real-world case studies.

North Korean hackers – the biggest hackers of all time

Yet, the picture is still dark, as North Korean hackers continue to deploy complex methods to launder stolen cryptocurrency.

And they are doing this by using specialist intermediaries, cross-chain transfers, token swaps, and over-the-counter (OTC) trading services. These networks help convert stolen assets into usable funds while making investigations more difficult.

For those unaware, North Korean hackers were responsible for the February 2025 Bybit hack, in which approximately $1.5 billion in crypto was stolen. Additionally, blockchain analytics firm zeroShadow, also confirmed that more than $1 billion in stolen funds was laundered between February and June 2025.

Then, in September 2026, attackers exploited Bitget, transferring an estimated $387.5 million in assets to wallets under their control. Elliptic linked the attack to North Korea, though investigators have yet to confirm the connection conclusively.

What’s more? 

Lastly, according to the Wu Blockchain analysis, attackers also moved funds across multiple wallets and blockchains, exchanged cryptocurrencies, and used mixing services to complicate transaction tracing.

This comes as the year 2026 has already lost $2.243 billion in total value hacked, as per DeFiLlama data.

Additionally, TRM Labs also reported that AI-enabled scam activity rose by roughly 500% over the past year. This reflects how tools such as deepfakes and voice cloning can help fraudsters scale deception.

Final Summary

At ACAMS’ The Assembly Las Vegas 2026, 79% of surveyed financial crime professionals identified crypto as their biggest training.
North Korean hackers have developed complex methods to launder stolen cryptocurrency, using specialist intermediaries, cross-chain transfers, and more.

 

TLDR:

Buterin says AI-accelerated math poses a core new risk to ML-DSA, FHE, and lattice-based cryptography. 
Ethereum’s lean roadmap uses hash-based signatures such as WOTS and SPHINCS- instead of lattices.
He suggests multiplying key sizes by 10 to make public-key encryption plausibly long-term secure.
Users are advised to keep funds in unused addresses, with caution about botched wallet migrations. 

Vitalik Buterin has urged the crypto community to take AI-driven threats to cryptography seriously. The Ethereum co-founder said lattice-based schemes such as ML-DSA and FHE face growing risk from accelerated mathematical research.

He advised against rushing to move funds to new wallets. However, he recommended reducing exposure to both quantum-vulnerable and potentially AI-vulnerable cryptography. He also said ECDSA could fall sooner than many expect, which supports keeping funds in fresh addresses.

Why Lattice-Based Cryptography Faces New Scrutiny

Vitalik Buterin outlined the concern in a post on X. He said many people think elliptic curves are broken but hashes and lattices are safe. In his words, “there is a good chance that the concrete security of lattices will take serious hits.” He tied that risk to AI math over the next two years.

He compared the situation to factoring. Factoring naively takes 2^(n/2) time. Researchers later developed number field sieves and cut that to 2^O(n^(1/3)). Hence, RSA keys and signatures need about 400 bytes instead of 64 bytes.

Buterin then asked, “What if there are skeletons in the closet like that, both for elliptic curves and lattices?” He said humans may not be smart enough to discover them, “but bots soon will be.” He named ML-DSA, FHE, and lattices as the core new area of risk.

Buterin added a conditional scenario. If AI delivers 50 years of math in two years, lattices would need much larger parameters. At those sizes, hash-based constructions would beat lattice-based ones on efficiency wherever they apply.

Hash-Based Alternatives and Practical Recommendations

Ethereum’s lean roadmap has moved toward hash-only designs over the past year. It excludes lattices, ML-DSA, Falcon, and lattice-based commitments inside ZK proofs.

Signatures in lean Ethereum rely on hash-based schemes, either WOTS or SPHINCS-. Buterin said signatures and proofs can already go hash-only.

Public-key encryption presents a harder challenge. Vitalik Buterin said theorems show it cannot be built from hashes alone. It needs a trapdoor object with usable structure, such as lattices or code-based systems.

He expects AI to make some progress breaking that structure. His advice is to “multiply the key sizes by 10” for long-term security.

Buterin does not yet see a reason to pad the byte size of hashes. If concerns grow, he would increase round counts first. He noted that P = NP would break hashes but called it very unlikely. His summary was, “Hash-based > lattice-based, in those situations where hash-based is possible at all.”

The post also listed practical steps. Buterin advised keeping funds in addresses that have not made a transaction, if easy.

He warned, “I personally have lost more money in botched migrations than I have lost in all hacks combined.” Vitalik Buterin also favored offchain multisig confirmations and offchain delivery of encrypted privacy notes.

Ethereum [ETH] broke out of the two-week trading band, with the short-term trend now in favor of sellers. With each subsequent high, Ethereum created a new floor at $2,625–$2,650 after rising from a low of $2,380 to nearly $2,810.

On the 7th of October, the first sign of an uptrend was broken when large volumes sold off Ethereum through both support levels.

Ethereum saw further declines before rising at $2,535 and then again at $2,559, which will be the next important area to monitor. This is because on the 20th of September, it served as the starting point for an advance.

Notably, the downside was amplified when BitMine’s chairman, Tom Lee, stated that BitMine will stop open-market ETH purchases. This will be upon reaching a 5% cap of circulating supply.

He further stated that Bitmine needs to purchase only 100,000 more ETH to hit the target.

Breakdown Volume reached its highest point ever during the time frame that it traded within. This confirmed increased selling pressure. Thus, if Ethereum can hold at $2,565, there is potential for it to recover back to $2,625-$2,650.

However, losing this level would expose $2,500, followed by $2,380-$2,400, weakening the broader recovery and increasing pressure on buyers.

Ethereum ETF outflows deepen

Following the breakdown, Ethereum’s ETF amplified the weakness. Notably, Bitcoin’s [BTC] ETF was stronger than Ethereum’s ETF in terms of institutional demand. As demonstrated by both funds’ net flow numbers from BlackRock.

On the 6th of October, BlackRock’s ETHA recorded $201.89 million in outflows. In contrast, its Bitcoin counterpart, IBIT, attracted $122 million. Notably, across the broader market, Bitcoin ETFs gained $119 million, while Ethereum ETFs lost $201.89 million.

As such, during this period, Bitcoin received the majority of investment inflows due to institutional demand despite being in a “risk off” environment. Therefore, an increase in money flowing into Ethereum’s ETF would be needed to help stabilize demand for the altcoin.

All together, institutional preference favors Bitcoin, leaving Ethereum dependent on stronger flows to stabilize demand.

AI raises new security risks for Ethereum

Beyond ETF demand, Ethereum faces a new security question as AI accelerates mathematical research and attack capabilities. Ethereum core researcher at the Ethereum Foundation, Justin Drake, warned that AI could weaken ECDSA sooner than expected.

However, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin acknowledged the risk while cautioning users against panic-driven migrations. That distinction matters because rushed wallet moves can create new security risks.

Meanwhile, Ethereum’s security teams are using AI to test protocol code and uncover vulnerabilities. One disclosed issue, CVE-2026-34219, showed how automated testing can expose weaknesses.

Attackers are also using AI to scan unverified contracts more efficiently. Therefore, Ethereum must strengthen defenses as AI advances. Moreover, better audits, safer wallet practices, and measured migration could limit future risks.

Final Summary

Ethereum faces deeper downside risk as $2,565 becomes the key support level after heavy selling.
ETH needs stronger ETF inflows and safer AI-driven security measures to restore institutional confidence and market stability.