2026-10-16 03:35

Bitcoin slid toward $81,300 on Wednesday, 14 October 2026, after hotter-than-expected US inflation lifted the odds of another Federal Reserve rate hike this month. The Consumer Price Index rose 3.7% year on year in September, above the 3.6% forecast and up from August’s 3.4%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ September CPI release. Headline prices were up 0.6% on the month as expected, but core CPI, which strips out food and energy, rose 0.3% against a 0.2% consensus estimate. Leveraged traders paid immediately. CoinGlass data showed more than $100 million in positions liquidated within an hour of the release, and the running 24-hour total had climbed past $220 million by Wednesday afternoon. It marked a second large flush in as many days after a wave of over $800 million on 13 October. Hike odds jump after the print Markets repriced the Fed quickly. Kalshi’s October market showed the probability of a 25-basis-point hike at 55%, up from 21%, while the CME FedWatch tool put it at 44% to 49%, up from 22%. The Fed meets on 27 and 28 October, having already raised rates by 25 basis points in September to a 3.75% to 4.00% range, its first increase in more than three years. Treasury yields moved with the repricing. The 2-year yield rose roughly 10 basis points to about 4.9% and the 10-year climbed to around 5.3%, close to 24-year highs, keeping risk assets under pressure. Rates traders fly blind before the decision Officials will decide without their preferred inflation gauge. Can-Luca Köymen of Sygnum Bank noted that September PCE data will not be published until 29 October, the day after the rate decision, leaving policymakers to weigh the risk of a second consecutive hike without it. The bank still expects a hold. “Core at 0.3%, above consensus, puts an October hike back in play after the market had faded it to one in five”, Köymen said. The energy picture explains the print. Gasoline jumped 9.1% in September and accounted for more than half the headline increase, with the broader energy index up 5.2% as oil has held above $90 a barrel for roughly two months amid the US-Iran conflict. September made it the 67th consecutive month of inflation above the Fed’s 2% target. The levels that matter next Bitcoin traded near $81,500 to $82,000 intraday, down between 1.5% and 2.15% depending on the snapshot. Bitget analyst Lewis Huang flagged $81,300 as the immediate support. Losing it could open $80,365 and then $78,003, while bulls need to reclaim $84,245 before higher resistance near $87,422. The Producer Price Index is due Thursday, 15 October, the next test before the Fed decision. https://www.forexcrunch.com/blog/2026/10/16/bitcoin-81300-support-fed-hike-odds-cpi/

2026-10-15 03:25

VanEck withdraws SEC registration for its Lido Staked Ethereum ETF VanEck has told the SEC it will not proceed with its planned Lido Staked Ethereum ETF, the first US filing tied to Lido’s stETH token. In the withdrawal filing, VanEck Digital Assets said it “does not intend to proceed with the planned distribution” of the trust’s shares. A year after the S-1, no reason given The registration never became effective, so no shares were issued and none will be. The fund would have held Lido staked Ether (stETH) directly, accruing staking rewards through ownership of the token and giving brokerage-account investors exposure to liquid staking. The filing ends a year-long process. VanEck reportedly registered the product as a Delaware statutory trust in early October 2025, before filing the S-1 registration statement on 16 October 2025. Neither the withdrawal nor any company statement explains what prompted the decision, or whether VanEck will pursue a replacement product. VanEck was the first firm to file for a US ETF tied to Lido’s liquid staking token. The withdrawal therefore sets the tone for the liquid staking ETF category in the US, even though development of such products continues in both the US and Europe. The backdrop has shifted too: the SEC has issued guidance distinguishing certain liquid staking activities from securities, and VanEck pulled the filing without ever receiving a regulatory denial. For Lido and its token At the time of the original filing, Lido’s total value locked stood at a reported $38 billion to $40 billion, and the protocol had distributed over $2 billion in cumulative staking rewards since launch. LDO, Lido’s governance token, rallied roughly 7% after the ETF filing was announced in October 2025. The withdrawal came to light on 14 October 2026, and VanEck has not responded publicly to comment requests. https://www.forexcrunch.com/blog/2026/10/15/vaneck-withdraws-lido-staked-ethereum-etf/

2026-10-14 03:00

Andrew Bailey holds two jobs that now point at the same problem. As chair of the Financial Stability Board (FSB), he has warned in a letter to G20 finance ministers and central bank governors that cross-border cooperation on stablecoins is “still in its infancy”. As governor of the Bank of England, he has previously warned that international stablecoin rulemaking stalled. The letter accompanies an FSB note published on 12 October 2026, which states that crisis-management frameworks for global stablecoin arrangements remain largely untested under severe stress or insolvency. The note was timed days before the G20 finance ministers and central bank governors’ meeting on 15 October, where the warning lands on the agenda of the officials Bailey writes to in his FSB capacity. The chairman’s letter, the governor’s stall “Global stablecoin arrangements are inherently cross-border, yet national regulations are taking shape at different speeds and cross-border cooperation in this area is still in its infancy,” Bailey wrote in the accompanying letter. The FSB’s own survey numbers underline the point: a 2025 FSB survey found only 11 of 28 jurisdictions had completed stablecoin regulatory frameworks, three years after its 2023 recommendations set out how they should. What Bailey wants from the G20 The note found significant gaps in regulatory, supervisory and crisis-management frameworks, and the FSB called for better cross-border data sharing between authorities, full adoption of its 2023 recommendations, and more work on planning for stablecoin distress or failure. The stakes are the size of the market itself: stablecoin capitalisation has grown from around $206 billion at the start of 2025 to roughly $300 billion as of mid-2026, with about 99% pegged to the US dollar. For the Bank of England’s constituency, the unresolved question is how holders recover funds when an issuer fails across multiple jurisdictions, a point the FSB raises without answering. The FSB’s recommendations are not legally binding, though members tend to commit to implementing agreed standards nationally. https://www.forexcrunch.com/blog/2026/10/14/fsb-bailey-stablecoin-crisis-warning-g20/

2026-10-13 02:41

Analysts at TD Cowen say the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s new crypto rulemaking may not be finalised before the 2028 presidential election, leaving the framework open to being rewritten or scrapped by a future administration. The warning came in a note from Jaret Seiberg, managing director at the bank’s Washington Research Group, dated 12 October 2026. In his words, time is running out: the CFTC at best will get its proposal out in late Q1 2027 or early Q2 2027, and it could then take until early 2028 to finalise the rule. What the CFTC actually put on the table The agency’s move so far is an advance notice of proposed rulemaking, issued on 5 October 2026. An ANPRM puts nothing into effect: it asks the public to weigh in on a tailored federal framework for retail commodity transactions in crypto that involve leverage, margin or financing, with a 60-day comment period once it appears in the Federal Register. Two draft regulations sit behind it. Regulation CTX would spell out which transactions fall under CFTC authority through Section 2(c)(2)(D) of the Commodity Exchange Act. Regulation CAM would create a “crypto asset markets” category within designated contract market registrations, giving leveraged crypto platforms a dedicated federal lane. The framework stops short of claiming jurisdiction over spot market transactions. Why the clock matters The Senate failed an initial vote on the Clarity Act, the market structure bill that would have given the CFTC broad spot-market authority, in September 2026. With legislation stalled, the CFTC and the Securities and Exchange Commission have stepped in with agency-level measures, including an innovation exemption. Chairman Michael Selig has described the agency’s approach as a temporary solution providing oversight while legislative efforts remain stuck. TD Cowen’s argument is that agency rules are a poor substitute for statute: future commissioners can modify or eliminate them outright, so only legislation is durable. Seiberg also sees a trap on speed: he warns that expediting the process would increase the risk a judge blocks it on procedural grounds, and that even careful rulemaking could still face legal challenges extending beyond 2028. The comment period clock has not yet started: the Federal Register publication date for the 5 October notice has not been announced. https://www.forexcrunch.com/blog/2026/10/13/td-cowen-cftc-2028-election-clock/

2026-10-11 02:05

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has told national supervisors to require MiCA-licensed crypto firms to clear EU clients’ exposure to non-compliant stablecoins within roughly three months, putting the practical deadline at about 8 January 2027. ESMA said in its 8 October opinion that firms authorised under the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation (MiCA) should resolve clients’ remaining holdings “as soon as possible and no later than three months” after publication. The document names no token or issuer; it covers MiCA’s two stablecoin categories, asset-referenced tokens (ART) and e-money tokens (EMT), that lack the regime’s authorisation. Limited exit services, no new buying During the wind-down, national regulators may allow firms to offer strictly limited services: liquidation, conversion, withdrawal, transfer or safekeeping of existing holdings. New purchases, promotion and continued market availability are prohibited. The exit services are discretionary, and ESMA leaves the decision to each national supervisor, so clients do not automatically get the full three months of continued service. The opinion is guidance rather than binding law. Implementation rests with the EU’s national authorities, which will decide platform by platform. Why ESMA presumes incompatibility ESMA grounds its position in Article 66(1) of MiCA, which obliges providers to act in clients’ best interests. Providing any MiCA service involving a non-compliant stablecoin gives rise, in ESMA’s view, to a presumption of incompatibility with that duty, whether or not the service amounts to a public offer or admission to trading. The watchdog argued that warnings, disclosures and client acknowledgements cannot offset the issuer-level safeguards a MiCA authorisation requires, including rules on reserves, redemption, governance and disclosure. The opinion tightens a trajectory ESMA set out earlier: a January 2025 statement restricted trading and public-offer services involving non-compliant stablecoins but left custody and transfers open, and a 30 September response to the European Commission’s MiCA review sought legislation prohibiting all licensable services involving them. Several major platforms had already restricted the largest stablecoin, Tether (USDT), for European clients before this week’s opinion, so the document formalises an existing delisting trend rather than starting one. The guidance concerns access to non-compliant stablecoins through regulated EU firms only. It does not ban ownership of the tokens themselves, and MiCA’s full rules for crypto-asset service providers have been active since 1 July 2026. The three-month window from the 8 October opinion runs to about 8 January 2027. https://www.forexcrunch.com/blog/2026/10/11/esma-stablecoin-mica-january-2027-deadline/

2026-10-10 01:25

Ninety-five per cent of revenue from one variable Circle Internet Group’s second-quarter 2026 earnings read less like a payments company’s statement and more like an open position on the US rate curve. As Crypto Briefing first reported, USDC moved $14.8 trillion of on-chain volume in the quarter, yet about 95% of Circle’s $701.3 million in total revenue and reserve income, roughly $667.7 million, was interest earned on the reserves backing the stablecoin, which sit mostly in US Treasuries and cash equivalents. That leaves $5.3 million of transaction revenue against $14.8 trillion of volume, and yields on the reserves at roughly 3.5%. For a desk that trades rate expectations, the shape is familiar: a growing balance sheet, funded in dollars, monetised almost entirely through interest. The rate math The income line divides into two moving parts: the yield on the reserves and the size of those reserves. USDC in circulation stood at $73.3 billion at 30 June 2026, up 19% year over year, and it is that growth in circulation that kept reserve income rising through the quarter even as yields fell toward 3.5%. A lower policy path that trims the reserve yield by a full percentage point, on a similar balance, is a double-digit share of the quarter’s entire revenue base gone. Growing circulation fast enough to offset each cut is the whole business case. The structure also cuts the other way. If circulation growth stalls, the model has no second engine waiting in reserve, so to speak. Net income for the quarter was $48 million with adjusted EBITDA of $143 million, up 8%, on revenue growth of just 7% year over year, a reminder that the interest line is doing nearly all the work. Where a second engine might come from The company’s answer is the Circle Payments Network, which the disclosure put at $14.7 billion in annualised volume across 175 institutions, up 76% quarter over quarter. Cross-border payments revenue is the obvious hedge against a fee-light settlement base, but at that scale it remains small against the Treasury interest line. Circle has also secured approvals tied to its Circle National Trust and New York Trust charters, which positions it with institutions that need a chartered counterparty before committing balances. For the trade’s purposes, the shares to watch are the same ones the bond desk watches: every 25 basis points off the short end is revenue that nothing in USDC’s transaction volume replaces. Circle released these Q2 2026 figures in early August 2026. https://www.forexcrunch.com/blog/2026/10/10/circle-usdc-earnings-bet-us-interest-rates/