As of Friday, 22 companies had filed objections as part of the joint venture’s proposed tokenized stock platform under the SEC’s innovation exemption.

Six more companies have reportedly filed objections to having their stocks listed in tokenized form on the proposed platform as part of a joint venture between cryptocurrency exchange OKX and the New York Stock Exchange’s parent company, the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE).

According to a Friday Reuters report, the proposed stock platform, called OKXICE, had 22 companies total objecting to having their US stock listings tokenized. Among the most recent objections reportedly included Wells Fargo, Arm Holdings and Intuit, adding their names to Microsoft and Google’s parent company Alphabet in the last week.

Notably, 16 of the companies were listed on Nasdaq, while only six of the stocks were available on the NYSE. Nasdaq released guidance for companies considering the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) innovation exemption for trading tokenized stocks in September, noting issuers “must be cautious about their participation,” saying “consequences for liquidity, price discovery, and long-term shareholder value may not become apparent until well after the experiment is underway.”

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The US tax agency is targeting faster resolutions and more flexible payment options for taxpayers voluntarily disclosing past tax violations under a planned program overhaul.

The US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is preparing to overhaul its voluntary disclosure program, with plans to reduce penalties and accelerate the resolution of tax violations, including those involving cryptocurrencies, according to a Friday report by Forbes.

IRS Criminal Investigation Chief Jarod Koopman said the agency aims to introduce the revised program before December, with a target of resolving cases within 120 days of taxpayers completing the required submission process.

The overhaul would reportedly not establish a separate disclosure process for digital assets. Koopman told attendees at the UCLA Extension Tax Controversy Conference that the IRS would handle digital assets through the same voluntary disclosure procedures used for other forms of tax noncompliance.

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The blockchain suspended its layer-1 network and rollups after security researchers identified unauthorized token minting and millions in assets transferred to Ethereum.

Initia halted its layer-1 blockchain and rollups after blockchain sleuths reported an exploit that allowed an attacker to mint tokens without authorization and drain more than $2.6 million in crypto assets.

The network was halted at 3:41 p.m. UTC on Friday following a security incident, Initia said in a post on X. The team said it was working with security researchers, validators and exchanges to determine the full extent of the impact.

Blockchain security researcher Spreek first flagged the exploit on Friday, reporting that an attacker had minted tokens without authorization and converted approximately $2.6 million into other assets, with additional funds still being moved.

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The Democratic ranking member of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations asked Paolo Ardoino for records related to a reported deal between Tether and Nxum.

Update (Oct. 23, 6:27 pm UTC): This article has been updated to include a response from Tether.

Senator Richard Blumenthal has requested information from Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino after a Wall Street Journal report said that the stablecoin issuer had inked a $6.3 million deal with a marketing company co-founded by former White House crypto adviser Bo Hines.

In a Thursday letter to Ardoino, the Connecticut lawmaker said that the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations demanded “records and information related to contracts, payments, communications, and lobbying” between Tether and Nxum, Hines’ company. The probe into Nxum, Tether and Hines, according to Blumental, was part of what the senator called the Trump administration’s “self-enrichment and self-dealings with cryptocurrency firms.”

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The SEC’s latest priorities highlight tokenization as an emerging market risk, while cryptocurrencies remain absent as a standalone examination category.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has added tokenization to its fiscal 2027 examination priorities, placing tokenized securities alongside quantum computing and extended trading hours among emerging trends it plans to examine.

In its 2027 examination priorities, released Friday, the SEC identified tokenization as an area of focus for examinations of critical market infrastructure. Tokenization was not explicitly mentioned in the agency’s 2026 priorities.

The report addressed the security and reliability of critical market infrastructure, stating:

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Bitcoin dipped below $81,000 as stocks fell and Brent crude hit its highest level since March, leaving the 50-day moving average in focus.

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:

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Need to know what happened in crypto today? Here is the latest news on daily trends and events impacting Bitcoin price, blockchain, DeFi, Web3 and crypto regulation.

Today in crypto, China said its national blockchain should be mostly finished by 2030, Ethereum postponed the Glamsterdam testnet fork after and Bitcoin mining competition intensified as network hashrate reached a seven-month high despite the industry’s shift toward AI

China has set a 2030 target for largely completing a national blockchain network under a five-year digital development plan published Friday.

The 15th Five-Year Plan for National Informatization, which sets priorities calls for deeper blockchain use in trade and finance in the Yangtze River Delta, and deployment at scale in manufacturing and agriculture in the Chengdu–Chongqing region in southwestern China.

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China’s five-year digital development plan calls for wider blockchain use in trade and manufacturing alongside stronger technical standards.

China has set a 2030 target for largely completing a national blockchain network under a five-year digital development plan published Friday.

The 15th Five-Year Plan for National Informatization, which sets priorities calls for deeper blockchain use in trade and finance in the Yangtze River Delta, and deployment at scale in manufacturing and agriculture in the Chengdu–Chongqing region in southwestern China.

Friday’s plan was issued by the Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission, a senior body within the ruling Communist Party that coordinates digital development policy.

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The request follows an August 2025 default judgment, with the AG also announcing nearly $6 million in settlements with four promoters.

New York Attorney General Letitia James has asked a court to order defunct crypto and forex trading platform NovaTech’s founders, Cynthia and Eddy Petion, and related companies to pay $1.37 billion over its Ponzi scheme.

The AG is seeking the return of about $1.13 billion in investor funds, plus $232.5 million in interest, according to a Thursday court filing.

The court found the Petions and the companies liable by default in August 2025 after they failed to respond to the lawsuit.

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Bitcoin price volatility cooled as stock markets battled another day of resurgent AI fears during Friday’s Asia trading session.

Bitcoin (BTC) ranged below $82,000 into Friday’s Wall Street open as stock markets slid further on AI financing concerns.

Key points:

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Recent hardware wallet security incidents have renewed debate over whether self-custody is suitable for beginners, as multisig and seedless designs carry their own risks.

Crypto executives are divided over whether self-custody was ever designed for beginners, while approaches such as multisignature wallets and seedless backups come with their own security and usability trade-offs.

“We don’t expect every driver to be a mechanic, and we shouldn’t expect everyone who wants to own their assets to become a security expert,” Safe Labs CEO Rahul Rumalla told Cointelegraph. 

Making self-custody easier to use could be critical to Bitcoin’s broader adoption, as the ability to “be your own bank” remains one of its defining features.

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The attacker moved $744,000 in ETH and BNB to Tornado Cash after exploiting Cysic’s bridge to mint 10 million tokens on BNB Smart Chain.

The wallet linked to the Cysic bridge exploit sent about $744,000 in cryptocurrencies to Tornado Cash on Friday after the Cysic Foundation offered the attacker a 10% recovery bounty.

The address transferred 300 Ether (ETH) and 30.4 BNB to the crypto mixer, according to blockchain security company PeckShield.

The hacker exploited a bridge vulnerability to mint 10 million Cysic (CYS) tokens on BNB Smart Chain on Saturday. Cysic suspended the bridge and blacklisted the recipient address, freezing about 2.8 million of the newly minted tokens. The foundation said its mainnet and existing assets in user wallets were unaffected.

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Bybit’s new VARA licence authorizes spot trading services in Dubai, but the exchange must complete additional regulatory requirements before launching.

Crypto exchange Bybit has secured a full Dubai license for spot trading following its earlier in-principle approval.

Bybit said Thursday that its Dubai entity, Bybit Fintech FZE, received a virtual asset service provider (VASP) license from Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) for exchange services, including spot trading.

A Bybit spokesperson told Cointelegraph that the entity’s previous in-principle approval was non-operational and did not permit it to serve customers in Dubai. VARA’s public register lists the new license as active, allowing services to retail, qualified and institutional investors. 

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HSBC is rolling out RedCoin wallets to PayMe users, with plans to support tokenized investment subscriptions and expand into institutional uses.

HSBC has launched its first Hong Kong-dollar stablecoin, RedCoin (RCHKD), for transfers and merchant payments through its PayMe app.

More than 3.3 million PayMe users will be able to activate stablecoin wallets in the app in the coming days, the bank announced Friday.

RedCoin is designed to be redeemable one-for-one for Hong Kong dollars. HSBC Digital Assets Custody provides safekeeping services for the stablecoin.

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BLOOM seeks to cut costs by helping financial institutions coordinate cross-border use of stablecoins and tokenized deposits.

Bank Negara Malaysia and the Bank of Thailand joined Singapore’s BLOOM initiative on Friday as policymaker members.

BLOOM, short for Borderless, Liquid, Open, Online, Multi-currency, is a public-private initiative that intends to help financial institutions use stablecoins and tokenized deposits for cross-border payments.

According to the Monetary Authority of Singapore, BLOOM aims to cut costs and help institutions bring services to market faster by reducing the need for institutions to set up arrangements with each counterparty or market.

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Thursday’s withdrawals ended a three-day inflow streak and left US spot Bitcoin ETFs with $175 million in net outflows for October.

US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) recorded $635 million in net outflows on Thursday, pushing October’s flows back into the red.

The withdrawals more than erased Wednesday’s $528 million in inflows and brought October’s net outflows to $175 million, according to SoSoValue data.

It was the largest single-day net outflow since June 25, when Bitcoin ETFs lost $696 million. The withdrawals snapped a three-day inflow streak that attracted $1.08 billion.

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ChainSecurity said it identified 13 real-world examples of smart contracts potentially affected by Glamsterdam’s gas changes and is coordinating responsible disclosure with affected projects.

Ethereum developers have postponed the Glamsterdam hard fork on the Hoodi testnet after researchers identified gas-related security risks that could affect how existing smart contracts handle failed transactions.

The Ethereum Foundation (EF) said that the upgrade, originally scheduled for Oct. 26, would be delayed to allow developers to investigate how some proposals interact with smart contracts deployed on Ethereum. 

On Oct. 13, Blockchain security firm ChainSecurity warned that two proposals included in Glamsterdam, EIP-8037 and EIP-8038, could weaken safeguards against a type of attack called insufficient gas griefing. 

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Bitcoin Core says keeping certain vulnerabilities secret no longer offers much protection in the wake of AI-assisted bug hunting.

Bitcoin Core is changing how it handles security vulnerabilities, explaining that large language models have made certain software flaws significantly easier to discover. 

In an email to the Bitcoin Development Mailing List on Thursday, Bitcoin Core developer Antoine Poinsot said that in the past, vulnerabilities were generally kept under lengthy disclosure embargoes to give users time to upgrade before details became public.

Maintaining that secrecy generally meant fixes could not be backported to older software versions, leaving users waiting until the next major release. However, Poinsot said LLMs have made some flaws so easy to rediscover that delaying fixes offers little protection.

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BIT Asset Management’s Bitcoin Fund ETF is expected to begin trading on SIX Swiss Exchange in November, with its public offering restricted to Switzerland.

Switzerland’s financial regulator FINMA’s first approved spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund for retail investors is expected to begin trading in November.

On Tuesday, FINMA announced it had approved the country’s first spot Bitcoin ETF that invests directly in Bitcoin, but did not disclose who the issuer was.

On Thursday, BIT Asset Management said its Bitcoin Fund ETF (BBIT) is expected to begin trading on SIX Swiss Exchange next month. The fund holds Bitcoin directly and is approved for public offering in Switzerland only.

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Hegseth warned that prediction market wagers could expose military operations to adversaries.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has barred all Pentagon staff from using undisclosed information to place wagers on upcoming military action, including on prediction market platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket. 

In a memo sent to senior Pentagon and defense agencies on Tuesday, Hegseth said all Department of War personnel are prohibited from engaging in financial transactions using nonpublic information. This involves both classified and unclassified information. 

“Make no mistake why this matters. Our enemies watch movements in these markets,” Hegseth wrote. “The lives of our Service members often depend on the enemy not knowing what is coming.”

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DeepSeek banned from US federal civilian agencies over spying fears. Singapore firm behind Europe’s only spot Bitcoin ETF, as Switzerland partners with Vietnam on crypto tech.

The US Treasury has proposed new rules that would block investment in artificial intelligence projects (sorry, ‘Super Intelligence’ projects) and certain high risk semiconductors in some foreign countries.

The blocks have been mainly aimed at geopolitical rival China, but will now also encompass other adversaries including Russia, Iran, North Korea and Cuba. The rules would implement the COINS Act from December 2025 and expand the Outbound Investment Security Program that went into effect in January 2025.

They rules build on previous restrictions on selling high powered AI chips to China. The US is backing up its threats too, having announced the first $200,000 penalty this month to Amidi, LLC. Treasury for failing to report an investment by its Chinese subsidiary into embodied AI and robotics company Shanghai Qiongche Intelligent Technology (AKA Noematrix.)

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According to a Circle shareholder, the US president’s “corruption” through USD1 left the company unable to compete with stablecoins, harming USDC.

Update (Oct. 22, 10:27 pm UTC): This article has been updated to include a statement from the White House.

A shareholder for Circle Internet Financial, the company behind the USDC (USDC) stablecoin, filed a lawsuit against US President Donald Trump, his family’s crypto company World Liberty Financial, affiliate entities, and US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff over a $2 billion deal between a foreign government entity and Binance.

In a Thursday filing in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, Circle shareholder J. Benjamin Greenberg alleged that Trump, Witkoff and World Liberty caused harm to Circle by creating a pathway for foreign governments to funnel money using the Trump family crypto company’s USD1 stablecoin. This “brazen corruption,” according to Greenberg, leaves Circle “unable to compete” in the stablecoin market with its USDC.

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The new service aims to bring onchain trading data into institutional financial systems as tokenized stock markets expand and face growing scrutiny.

Blockchain analytics platform Dune has launched real-time market data feeds covering more than 200 onchain trading venues, aiming to bring decentralized market activity into the trading systems used by traditional financial institutions.

The new service provides trade data from 12 blockchains, including Ethereum, Solana, Base and XLayer, roughly one second after execution, according to a Thursday announcement.

The feeds cover spot trading across decentralized exchanges, as well as perpetual futures trading on Hyperliquid and Lighter, with standardized data on prices, trade sizes and transaction details across markets.

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While crypto-aligned PACs have stepped up spending in Ohio, a committee launched by the co-founders of crypto exchange Gemini made one of its first forays into the Lone Star State.

Digital Freedom Fund, the Super political action committee (PAC) launched by Gemini co-founders Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss in 2025, announced additional expenditures for US Senate races in the 2026 midterm elections, attempting to influence voters in Texas, Iowa and Ohio.

In a Tuesday filing with the US Federal Election Commission (FEC), the Digital Freedom Fund reported its first spending on ads to support Republican candidate Ken Paxton for one of Texas’ Senate seats. According to the PAC, it had spent more than $81,000 on direct mail media to support Paxton and oppose Democratic candidate James Talarico, with early voting having already begun in the state.

The Winklevoss-backed Super PAC, which reported raising about $34 million as of Sept. 30, did not limit its spending to Texas, reporting involvement in other key midterm election races using ads. Digital Freedom Fund disclosed additional expenditures in Ohio’s Senate race between Republican Jon Husted and Democrat Sherrod Brown, bringing the PAC’s total support for Husted to about $7 million.

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The new funding option, expected to launch later this year, will allow eligible Underdog users to deposit digital assets around the clock.

Prediction market operator Underdog has partnered with crypto infrastructure provider zerohash to introduce cryptocurrency and stablecoin deposits, with the new funding option expected to launch later this year.

Eligible users will be able to fund their accounts directly through the Underdog app using supported digital assets, with the service designed to enable near-instant transfers around the clock, according to a Thursday announcement.

Underdog did not specify which cryptocurrencies or stablecoins would be supported and did not respond to Cointelegraph’s request for clarification before publication.

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According to BlocksBridge, Bitcoin’s mining difficulty is rising despite the industry’s AI transition, with smaller operators potentially absorbing equipment abandoned by larger competitors.

Bitcoin’s network hashrate has climbed to a seven-month high despite major publicly traded miners shifting capacity toward artificial intelligence, suggesting other operators are replacing lost computing power and intensifying competition among remaining network miners.

According to BlocksBridge Consulting’s latest Miner Weekly newsletter, Bitcoin’s seven-day average hashrate has recovered above 1 zettahash per second (ZH/s), equivalent to 1,000 exahashes per second (EH/s), its highest level since March 3.

Hashrate measures the computing power securing the Bitcoin network. The recovery suggests that miners still operating on the network are seeing little relief from competition, despite the industry’s ongoing transition to AI workloads. 

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According to the Central Bank of Ireland, Coinbase Ireland had agreed with the facts around the enforcement action and will be subject to fines and sanctions upon approval by a high court.

The Central Bank of Ireland announced an enforcement action against Coinbase Ireland for failures to safeguard user funds and provide oversight between 2020 and 2025. 

In a Thursday notice, the regulator said that the Coinbase arm had “admitted the prescribed contraventions and has agreed to the undisputed facts,” settling for $3.6 million in fines. The notice said that Coinbase Ireland had violated regulations related to oversight and safeguarding of customer funds and improperly relied on the exchange’s US company to outsource certain services.

The company’s user agreement currently states: “We use a variety of service providers (some belonging to the Coinbase Group and some not) in the context of outsourcing arrangements to help us provide the Coinbase Services in an efficient and qualitative manner.”

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Bitcoin extended daily losses to 3% as US stocks came under pressure from President Donald Trump’s comments on Iran military action.

Bitcoin (BTC) stayed below $82,000 around Thursday’s Wall Street open as Iran war headlines returned to pressure risk assets.

Key points:

Data from TradingView showed BTC/USD hitting $81,256 on Bitstamp, down 2.9% on the day.

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Fireblocks told Cointelegraph that reports of a potential $2.5 billion acquisition by Visa are “not true at present time,” while Visa declined to comment on the reported talks.

Crypto custody and infrastructure provider Fireblocks is disputing a report that payments giant Visa is in late-stage talks to acquire the company for about $2.5 billion.

“We are aware of the rumors about a possible acquisition of Fireblocks by Visa. This is news to us, and not true at present time,” a Fireblocks spokesperson told Cointelegraph on Thursday.

Axios reported Thursday, citing multiple sources, that the payment giant was in advanced discussions to acquire Fireblocks for approximately $2.5 billion.

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Public miners backed by major TradFi players are coming back online, boosting Bitcoin’s hashrate, a positive sign for BTC’s fundamentals, according to CryptoQuant’s Ki Young Ju.

Bitcoin’s rising hashrate represents an “indirect bullish signal” from institutional investors that are backing several public Bitcoin miners, according to analytics platform CryptoQuant’s founder and CEO, Ki Young Ju.

“Higher hashrate means stronger security and better fundamentals as a store of value,” wrote Ju in a Thursday X post, adding that he sees this as a bullish signal since public miners are largely backed by traditional finance (TradFi) institutions.

Hashrate is a measure of the computational power of a blockchain network, indicating how many hash calculations are performed per second.

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