The French Senate adopted a bill to allow tax authorities to automatically exchange crypto transaction data with their foreign counterparts.

The bill passed its first reading on Tuesday and was then transmitted to the National Assembly as Bill no. 3421 for consideration.

The bill covers an agreement on exchanging crypto tax information and an update to an existing agreement on financial account information.

The crypto agreement is based on the Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (CARF), developed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). CARF sets common standards for participating jurisdictions to collect and automatically exchange information on crypto transactions.

France already introduced crypto reporting obligations through the 2025 Finance Act, implementing the crypto reporting amendment to the European Union’s Directive on Administrative Cooperation, known as DAC8. The rules require crypto service providers to report customer identities and transaction data to tax authorities, which share the information with authorities in users’ EU countries of residence.

French lawmakers are also debating crypto tax changes in the 2027 budget. The National Assembly adopted an amendment on Oct. 16 that would make gains from conversions into certain fiat-pegged stablecoins taxable from Jan. 1, 2027. The measure is not law yet.

Lawmakers resumed debate on the budget’s revenue section on Tuesday, with a vote scheduled for Nov. 3.

Related: ECB President Christine Lagarde to step down in February 2027

EU’s planned crypto tax repository raises data security, wrench attack concerns

Tax reporting under DAC8 raises data security concerns because it involves sharing personal information, including names, addresses, tax numbers and transaction volumes, between EU tax authorities, Faustine Fleuret, global head of public affairs at lending protocol Morpho, told Cointelegraph.

“In a country where crypto holders have been physically targeted, a leaked list of who trades what, and for how much, is not only a privacy issue but first and foremost a safety issue.” 

The European Commission plans to create a central repository for crypto reports by the end of 2026. Each member state’s tax authorities would be able to access information concerning its tax residents.

Fleuret said that centralizing this information could create a “single point of failure” for sensitive crypto transaction data.

Share of wrench attacks by region. Source: CertiK

Fleuret’s remarks follow an alarming rise in physical attacks targeting cryptocurrency investors, also known as wrench attacks. During the first half of 2026, France accounted for 33 of the 52 verified wrench attacks worldwide, according to blockchain security company CertiK.

In a March incident, a French couple in their late 50s was robbed of about $1 million worth of Bitcoin by criminals posing as police officers.

Magazine: France is world’s most dangerous place for Bitcoiners: 90 attacks in 7 months

“I Don’t Trust Crypto”

Youtuber and boxer Logan Paul has a new take on digital assets because, in a recent podcast appearance, when his longtime collaborator Mike Majlak told him, “Binance got hacked. $6,000,000,000 stolen.” Paul replied:

I mean bro, super intelligence, AI, I don’t trust crypto. It’s a scam.

Majlak’s figure tracked the official tally, with Binance itself estimating the total impact of the breach at around $6.3 billion, making it the largest crypto theft on record.

As expected, the reaction drew instant pushback, with popular digital asset commentator Mario Nawfal noting:

Paul is the same guy who launched Cryptozoo, an NFT project that never delivered and faced heavy accusations of being a rug pull. The irony is hard to miss.

The Lingering Cryptozoo Shadow That Won’t Leave

Cryptozoo was a non-fungible token (NFT) game Paul promoted that buyers say never launched as promised. The dispute has dragged on in court, and in February of this year, Paul sought once again to dismiss a lawsuit accusing him of using the project to conduct a so-called rug pull, arguing the latest version of the Texas federal suit does not show he can be held liable for the entity’s conduct.

Paul has argued in court that he cannot be held liable, and his calling the wider industry a scam while that case continues is what set off critics on social media.

What Actually Happened at Binance

Paul’s comment arrived as investors tried to make sense of a chaotic night where onchain trackers as well as prominent media outlets such as CNN have attributed the attack to North Korea with high confidence. Binance said the total amount of stolen assets frozen has reached approximately $3 billion, and its co-CEO Yi He said the exchange will cover all the hacking losses.

Markets took a hit as expected, with bitcoin falling 4.5% to $76,664 early on Oct. 30, while more than $1.5 billion in leveraged positions were liquidated in 24 hours. However, over the past couple of hours, BTC has forged a comeback and is currently hovering near $78,500.

Paul Is Spooked by AI but So Are Many Others

Alongside his offhand comment about crypto, Paul also posited that he was afraid of artificial intelligence (AI), a sentiment echoed by a whole host of crypto personalities in the wake of the Binance hack. Tesla CEO Elon Musk, for instance, reacted to the breach with a terse “everyday is zeroday,” a nod to zero-day exploits, which are flaws attackers use before defenders know they exist.

Capriole Investments founder Charles Edwards went further and wrote:

Over the last six months, the AI threat has also become large, perhaps a greater threat to the ecosystem generally than quantum computing. If the king can’t protect itself, how can any other exchange be trusted?

Others took the opposite lesson, with investor Anthony Pompliano saying the hack was a good reminder of the saying ‘not your keys, not your coins.’ Another prominent online trader summed up the mood by listing Ledger, Binance, Polymarket, Metamask and Phantom and asking, “Where do I store my money?”

His comments came in the wake of Polymarket halting trading over a seperate exploit the same day. Lastly, Sean Foley of Macquarie University told Al Jazeera that “any assets held at a centralized exchange are only as safe as the exchange itself.”

The US Federal Election Commission (FEC) filing system is offline after reports of a hack, potentially obscuring expenditures by super political action committees (PACs) and other groups in the final days before the 2026 midterm elections.

As of Tuesday at 7:48 pm UTC, the FEC said it was continuing to experience an “electronic filing system outage,” but was working to resolve the issue. Campaign finance data by PACs and other entities were still available for the public to view, but the system outage suggested that last-minute spending could go unreported.

For example, with just six days until Election Day, FEC filings showed no expenditures from the cryptocurrency industry-aligned Super PACs Fairshake, Defend American Jobs, Protect Progress, Fellowship and Digital Freedom Fund since Sunday. Cointelegraph reached out to Fairshake for comment but did not receive an immediate response.

Super PACs are required to report certain spending to the FEC within 24 hours of the funds being used, provided the expenditures total $1,000 or more. Candidates for House and Senate seats, likewise, are expected to report contributions of $1,000 or more within 48 hours in the 20 days before an election.

Digital Freedom Fund, a PAC launched by Gemini co-founders Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, reported on Sunday that it had spent more than $572,000 on text messages to support various Republican Senate candidates, with the majority going to bolster Ken Paxton’s campaign in Texas. Protect Progress’ most recent expenditure before the FEC outage showed more than $50,000 for a direct mail campaign supporting Representative Aisha Wahab in California’s 14th district.

Related: CLARITY vote failure could stoke more crypto PAC spending in key races

The 2026 midterms could be consequential for many in the crypto industry who support digital asset laws passing in Congress and state-level legislation and policies. Lawmakers in Congress failed to advance a crypto market structure bill in September, leading to Fairshake and other industry advocates supporting the reelection of those who voted in favor of the legislation.

Reuters reported on Tuesday that the disruption was caused by the FEC website being targeted by a hacker or hackers, according to an email. An FEC spokesperson told Cointelegraph that its IT staff were ”actively working to restore service.”

History repeats itself in Ohio with crypto PAC spending on Senate candidates

In 2024, Fairshake spent about $41 million opposing Senator Sherrod Brown’s reelection bid against Republican Bernie Moreno. The Democratic lawmaker ended up losing his Senate seat, but announced that he would run against incumbent Jon Husted in 2026, leading to another election with money from the crypto industry flowing into attack ads.

Before the FEC outage, Fairshake reported spending $56 million on media to oppose Brown and support Husted, while the Digital Freedom Fund disclosed more than $7 million in expenditures for the same race. The crypto PACs are just some of the groups interested in influencing Ohio voters in the 2026 midterms, with reports of tens of millions of dollars being spent from Democratic- and Republican-aligned organizations.

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The Depository Trust Company (DTC), a subsidiary of The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), has launched tokenization services enabling eligible users to mint tokenized representations of securities held at DTC.

DTCC clients are eligible to use the DTCC Tokenization Service (DTS). DTS will convert between traditional and tokenized forms of securities that are transferable to digital wallets and retain the same ownership rights and investor protections as their traditional counterparts, the company announced on Wednesday.

The post-trade market infrastructure provider said that 20 of its clients have signed agreements to access the services, including Alpaca, Citadel Securities, Citi, Clear Street, DriveWealth, Fidelity Investments, Interchange Clearing and JPMorgan.

DTC has more than $114 trillion in assets under custody, including stocks and exchange-traded funds. The company said its service will create a “practical path” for tokenized securities adoption. 

In December 2025, the US Securities and Exchange Commission issued a “no action” letter stating that it would not recommend enforcement action against DTCC’s subsidiary in relation to its proposed tokenization program.

In May, DTCC said it planned a full service launch of trading of tokenized securities in October 2026, following a July 2026 pilot.

The tokenization service is currently integrated with Canton Network and DTCC’s Besu private network, with plans to add additional blockchain networks in 2027.

Related: US financial markets ‘poised to move on-chain’ amid DTCC tokenization greenlight

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced legal action against Utah officials after the state’s attorney general said he would sue to compel Kalshi and its affiliates to return up to $60 million in profits allegedly obtained illegally. 

In a Monday filing in the US District Court for the District of Utah, lawyers for the commodities regulator sued the State of Utah and its Attorney General Derek Brown a week after officials announced legal action against prediction market platform Kalshi and its affiliates over allegedly illegal betting. 

According to the CFTC, Utah was attempting to bypass congressional intent to “federally preempt state law” by “restrict[ing] the functioning of CFTC-registered exchanges.” CFTC Chair Michael Selig has been claiming for months that the regulator has “exclusive jurisdiction” over prediction markets, leading to several lawsuits between state and federal authorities.

“The event contracts targeted by Utah are ‘swaps’ under the federal [Commodity Exchange Act], and the exchanges that offer these event contracts for trading are CFTC-regulated Designated Contract Markets [DCMs],” said the lawsuit. “Utah’s efforts to prevent a CFTC-regulated DCM from offering CFTC-approved financial products intrude on the exclusive federal scheme Congress designed to oversee United States commodity derivatives markets.”

Kalshi spokesperson Jacki McGavick told Cointelegraph in response to the Utah lawsuit:

“As a national derivatives market overseen by the CFTC, Kalshi answers to federal law, and no single state should have a veto over it.“

The case is another dispute between federal and state authorities over prediction markets that may be resolved only by a Supreme Court decision. In September, New Jersey officials petitioned the high court to weigh in on their case against Kalshi, similar to other lawsuits pending in Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, Nevada, Massachusetts, Wisconsin and New York. As of Tuesday, the Supreme Court has not announced whether it will hear arguments in the case.

Related: NBA names Kalshi, Polymarket preferred exchanges, signs CFTC deal

Zcash’s 20% Dev Fund Sets It Apart From Bitcoin

Zcash is turning 10 with a development model that looks very different from Bitcoin’s.

Grayscale highlighted the network’s built-in funding structure ahead of the anniversary, arguing that Zcash’s ability to keep shipping technical upgrades through multiple crypto cycles has been supported by protocol-level funding for research and development.

Currently, miners receive 80% of ZEC block rewards, while 20% is allocated to development-related programs.

That structure has given Zcash a recurring source of funding rather than leaving development entirely dependent on venture capital or private donations.

Zcash Funding Model Faces a New Proposal

The current Dev Fund sends 8% of block rewards to Zcash Community Grants (ZCG), and another 12% to the Coinholder-Controlled funding mechanism.

But that structure could soon change.

Zcash co-founder and protocol developer Sean Bowe has submitted a draft Zcash Improvement Proposal that would end the 8% block subsidy going to ZCG and redirect it to the Network Sustainability Mechanism (NSM).

Rather than entering immediate circulation, those ZEC would be withheld under the proposed mechanism.

Bowe argues that ZCG already has sufficient reserves to continue funding grants. The proposal would leave ZCG’s existing treasury untouched, while also preserving the separate 12% allocation, miners’ share of block rewards, and ZEC’s maximum supply.

The debate highlights how Zcash’s funding model continues to evolve alongside the technology it supports.

Privacy Pools Show a Decade of Iteration

Zcash’s clearest technical progress has come through its shielded pools.

The network launched with Sprout, followed by Sapling in 2018 and Orchard in 2022. In 2026, the Ironwood upgrade addressed a code vulnerability while introducing quantum-recoverable addresses and formal verification.

Formal verification uses mathematical methods to establish whether software satisfies specified security properties, an increasingly relevant safeguard for privacy infrastructure.

Each generation has effectively rebuilt parts of Zcash’s privacy architecture rather than leaving its original design untouched.

Post-Quantum Security Is the Next Test

Grayscale expects future development to focus increasingly on transaction capacity, post-quantum preparedness, and cybersecurity risks amplified by artificial intelligence.

That matters because privacy-focused crypto faces an unusually demanding security challenge. The network must protect both users’ funds and the confidentiality of their transactions.

Zcash’s anniversary therefore arrives at an important moment.

After a decade of protocol-funded development, the question is no longer simply whether that model can finance innovation. It is how Zcash should allocate those resources as its priorities shift toward quantum security, sustainability, and the next generation of privacy technology.

Binance has applied for a cryptocurrency service provider license in Brazil, seeking to maintain its operations in one of Latin America’s largest crypto markets ahead of a regulatory deadline on Friday, Oct. 30.

The exchange submitted its application to the Central Bank of Brazil on Friday, Oct. 23, through its local entity, BBrasil, according to a statement shared with Cointelegraph.

The company said the filing would allow Brazilian users to continue accessing crypto assets, stablecoin trading, payments and investment services.

Binance has also announced changes for Brazilian users effective Tuesday, including restrictions on crypto lending, margin trading and other services. The exchange is also delisting 22 crypto assets in the country.

“We support a regulated market that considers the characteristics of virtual assets, so that access to technology and innovation continues to advance, but we hope that the ongoing dialogue with the Central Bank will allow us to offer, in the near future, other products that were discontinued to comply with current regulations,” said Thiago Sarandy, Binance’s general manager in the country.

Brazil requires existing crypto service providers to submit authorization applications by Oct. 30 to continue operating under transitional arrangements. Filing an application does not constitute regulatory approval.

Related: Binance.US seeks $1B valuation in potential $100M funding round: Report

The company’s bitcoin buys were gradually declining over the past month, until they completely disappeared.

While Matt Cole’s Strive just executed its single-largest bitcoin purchase to date, Michael Saylor’s Strategy has remained on the sidelines.

Instead, the NASDAQ-listed business intelligence software firm has doubled down on its STRC repurchasing efforts, as the stock’s price tumbled once again last week.

Strategy has repurchased $205M of $STRC. As of 10/25/26, we hold 848,517 $BTC and $5.1B of USD Assets. $MSTR https://t.co/XTTFEh0rSc

— Michael Saylor (@saylor) October 26, 2026

Strategy resumed its BTC purchases in mid-September, buying over $140 million worth of the crypto asset during the week that ended on September 27. However, there was an evident slowdown in the following three weeks, as the bitcoin buys fell to under $30 million each.

This culminated last week, when Saylor’s company refrained from buying any BTC, while, as mentioned above, Strive spent more than $510 million on its biggest weekly acquisition.

Strategy continues to hold 848,517 BTC, purchased at an average price of $75,446 per unit. It was acquired for $64 billion, and the firm is slightly in the green on its massive position as of now.

Saylor’s brainchild continues to repurchase its STRC preferred stock, spending $205 million in the past week. Recall that STRC’s price dipped below $98 once again last week, slightly below its par level of $100. However, it rebounded in the following days and closed on Friday at over $99.

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European Central Bank Executive Board member Piero Cipollone said the digital euro that is set for a pilot next year has the potential to give the bloc “sovereignty” over a payments infrastructure that currently requires dependency on external, non-European third parties.

Cipollone said in an interview with Italy’s Milano Finance published by the central bank on Saturday that because the bloc is critically dependent on third parties, it’s not easy to ensure this smooth functioning. He did not cite specific third parties.

“In recent years Europe has learned that, for some essential services, we cannot rely only on third parties. We saw this with energy and we’re seeing it today with defense. And the same is true for payments,” he said.

The pilot will use real transactions by ECB and national central bank staff. With 36 market operators, including seven from Italy, collaborating on preparations, the ECB is inviting e-commerce and mobile-commerce operators to participate.

“The smooth functioning of payment systems is one of our responsibilities. If we are critically dependent on third parties, it’s not easy to ensure this smooth functioning,” Cipollone said.

To be sure, sovereignty doesn’t mean shutting third parties out, Cipollone said. “It means having the power to choose and knowing that, for an essential service like payments, Europe can also rely on its own strength.”

In an April public lecture held in Latvia, Cipollone said that Europe’s reliance on non-European payment providers creates a strategic vulnerability. He said two-thirds of euro-area card transactions are governed by non-European companies, and that the digital euro could reduce that dependence and provide European-controlled payment infrastructure.

The ECB Governing Council can only decide on issuing a digital euro only after legislative negotiations in Brussels conclude. 

“We hope that the regulation will be adopted by the end of the year, enabling the ECB’s Governing Council to issue a formal decision on issuance,” Cipollone told Milano Finance .

Magazine: New DeepSeek ban in US, Swiss-Asia crypto ties deepen: Asia Express

Bitcoin (BTC) saw a fresh dip below $81,000 after Friday’s Wall Street open as Brent crude oil set new seven-month highs.

Key points:

Bitcoin briefly dropped below $81,000 at the start of Friday’s US trading session as stocks drifted lower and the US 10-year yield remained below 5%. Brent crude oil reached $116 per barrel for the first time since March 19 amid Middle East tensions.BTC price action focused on reclaiming its 50-day simple moving average at $81,781.

US stocks slip, bond yields cool as oil surges

Data from TradingView showed BTC/USD falling to $80,988 before recovering to around $81,600 at the time of writing.

BTC/USD one-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

US stocks opened lower as AI-sector expenditure woes coincided with a surge in oil prices on the back of tensions around the US-Iran war.

The S&P 500 and tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index were down 0.6% and 0.2%, respectively, at the time of writing. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was 1.4% lower.

As traders turned risk-averse, the 10-year US bond yield stayed below 5%, having reached 4.939% on Thursday, their lowest since Sept. 23.

US 10-year bond yield one-day chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView 

Concerns that the US may renew military strikes on Iran around the midterm elections sent WTI crude oil past $102 per barrel on Friday. This is the highest level since Sept. 16. Brent crude saw an even sharper rise of nearly 3% to $116 per barrel, a level last seen in mid-March.

CFDs on Brent crude oil one-day chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

Commenting, economist Robin Brooks noted that prices were rising although oil flows through the Persian Gulf approached pre-war levels for many nations and Saudi Arabia surpassed its pre-war average.

“Since the start of the war, we’ve not seen this kind of decoupling between prices and flows,” he wrote in analysis on the day, seeing markets incorporating a “huge risk premium.”

 

Persian Gulf oil-transit volumes (screenshot). Source: Robin Brooks on Substack.com

BTC price analysis eyes 50-day trend line

Commenting on low-timeframe BTC price action, Keith Alan, cofounder of crypto trading platform Material Indicators, saw the potential for lower support retests to come.

Related: Here’s what happened in crypto today

BTC/USD, he noted, had fallen below its 50-day simple moving average (SMA) at $81,781, with bulls now attempting to reclaim it by the daily close.

“If they fail to do so by tonight’s close, I’m looking for a support test in the $78k – $80k range,” he told X followers.

BTC/USD one-day chart with 50 SMA. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

Previously, Cointelegraph reported on substantial BTC price support between $80,000 and $81,500, as this area hosts the aggregate cost basis for investors in the spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs).