The crypto market is heading into a busy week from Oct. 19 to Oct. 25, with a dense schedule of regulatory meetings, exchange actions, protocol upgrades, token generation events and unlocks. Among the headline items, the Starknet community’s non-binding vote on whether to explore a transition into an independent quantum-resistant Layer 1 is due to end on Oct. 22, while Robinhood Chain ecosystem trading platform Fables plans its FABLES token generation event for Oct. 20.
Oct. 19: CME expands crypto futures, exchanges adjust listings, and support windows change
According to an official CME notice, CME Group will launch Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Uniswap (UNI) futures on Oct. 19. Both products will include standard and micro contracts. The BCH standard contract will cover 250 BCH and the micro contract 25 BCH, while the UNI standard contract will cover 10,000 UNI and the micro contract 1,000 UNI. CME has already listed futures tied to Bitcoin, Ether, XRP and SOL earlier.
South Korean exchange Upbit said it will end support for the ICX/KRW trading pair at 15:00 KST on Oct. 19, 2026. Any open orders will be canceled, and withdrawals will remain available through Nov. 18. Upbit said it had designated ICX as an investment warning item on Aug. 28 and later concluded that the reasons for that designation had not been resolved. The exchange cited an Aug. 27 replay attack on the ICON network in which two signed withdrawal messages were reused 1,492 times, releasing 119.9 million ICX and 531,600 bnUSD and causing roughly 25 hours of downtime. After the delisting notice, Upbit said it would no longer support ICX airdrops, wallet upgrades, migrations or hard forks.
Binance said it will suspend deposits and withdrawals for Filecoin (FIL) network tokens starting at 19:59 UTC+8 on Oct. 19, 2026, to support a network upgrade and hard fork. The upgrade and hard fork are scheduled for block height 6,470,279, expected at 20:59 UTC+8 on the same day. Trading in FIL will not be affected, Binance said, and the exchange will handle all technical requirements for users before reopening deposits and withdrawals once the network is stable.
Binance will also support the IoTeX (IOTX) network upgrade and hard fork. It expects to suspend deposits and withdrawals for IOTX network tokens at 09:00 Beijing time on Oct. 19, 2026. The project team plans to carry out the upgrade and hard fork at block height 53,533,081, expected at 10:00 Beijing time that day.
Outside the crypto-native calendar, the 2026 Financial Street Forum Annual Conference will open in Beijing Financial Street on Oct. 19 and run through Oct. 22. Official information says the event, the 15th edition of the forum, will host 21 topic sessions across the main forum and parallel forums, plus three themed conferences. Within the fintech conference framework, the People’s Bank of China plans to host the Chengfang Fintech Forum and a seminar on AI applications and risk control in finance, and is expected to release results including a central bank-side digital yuan system and a digital yuan smart contract ecosystem service framework.
In corporate developments, U.S.-listed Universal Safety Products (UUU) will change its name to DeFi Capital Markets on Oct. 19 and begin trading under the new ticker DCM. The company said it will gradually wind down its original product business and shift its focus to asset tokenization, digital assets, market making, quantitative trading and blockchain financial markets.
Oct. 20: South Korea discusses crypto taxation, Fables plans TGE, and Zcash reviews NU7
The South Korean government is set to meet representatives from Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Digital X and GOPAX, along with executives from the Digital Asset eXchange Alliance (DAXA), on Oct. 20 to hear their views on a virtual asset tax scheduled to begin next year. Under the current plan, gains from virtual asset transfers and lending would be taxed at 22% after a basic exemption of 2.5 million won. The policy has already been delayed three times since it was first proposed in 2020.
Fables, a trading platform in the Robinhood Chain ecosystem, said its FABLES token is scheduled for a TGE on Oct. 20, with the ve(3,3) mechanism going live at the same time. Its points campaign has been extended through Oct. 19. The project said it will publish a claiming guide on Oct. 12, and points participants must choose between liquid tokens and locked veFABLES from Oct. 12 to Oct. 19. A snapshot for PROLOGUE holders is tentatively set for Oct. 17-18, with the final conversion ratio to be confirmed afterward. The team said every 40 eligible PROLOGUE will be redeemable for at least one liquid FABLES. At the time of the TGE, no more than 75 million FABLES will be circulating, and the team allocation will not be in circulation.
According to the Zcash community forum, Zcash development organizations and engineering teams have aligned on the content and timing of the NU7 network upgrade. The plan is to complete code by Sept. 30, activate it on the official testnet on Oct. 6, and make a final mainnet activation decision on Oct. 20 after reviewing testnet results. Mainnet launch is tentatively set for Nov. 5. NU7 includes reducing block intervals to 25 seconds, disabling v4 transactions, and integrating new issuance-related measures based on voting results, including a ZIP-234 alternative and ZIP-235. The upgrade will keep the halving mechanism and begin reissuance from February 2031. It does not include a new transaction format, so wallets are not expected to face major impact, though full nodes, indexers and block explorers may need adjustments.
Bitcoin treasury company Strive plans to increase the size of its SATS 15% Series A perpetual preferred stock IPO by 2 million shares to 7 million shares, priced at $90 per share. Subject to customary closing conditions, the offering is expected to close on Oct. 20, 2026. Before underwriting discounts, commissions and estimated offering expenses, Strive expects gross proceeds of about $630 million.
The Osmosis community has put forward a proposal to end OSMO inflation issuance, stop newly minted tokens from being used for staking rewards and community pool allocations, and pause daily vesting releases for developer tokens. Roughly 51.9 million remaining developer tokens would stay in a module account, with any future release requiring separate governance approval. The proposal is scheduled to go on-chain on Oct. 20 and, if passed, would take effect from the next daily cycle. It is still in the forum discussion stage.
Mint Blockchain said it officially ceased operations on April 17, 2026. Users must withdraw ETH, WBTC, USDC and USDT from Mint Chain to Ethereum mainnet by Oct. 20, 2026. Assets not withdrawn by then will not be processed.
StandX said it will gradually shut down operations and will not issue a token. Instead, it plans a one-time DUSD airdrop with no lockup, funded by remaining project revenue and additional team capital. The platform has already stopped all yield. Starting Oct. 20, perpetual contracts will be reduce-only. On Jan. 15, 2027, all remaining open positions will be closed at mark price, and DUSD redemption and withdrawals will end on Jan. 31. The airdrop claim window will open at 08:00 Beijing time on Nov. 1 and close at 16:00 on Dec. 31.
SpaceX (SPCX.O) is also scheduled to release its third-quarter 2026 results on Oct. 20 and hold a webcast.
On token unlocks, LayerZero (ZRO) will unlock about 23.28 million tokens at 19:00 Beijing time on Oct. 20, equal to about 3.83% of circulating supply and worth about $43.3 million. Kaito (KAITO) will unlock about 17.6 million tokens at 20:00 Beijing time, equal to about 3.69% of circulating supply and worth about $5 million.
Oct. 21: Solana’s Alpenglow, the Aero merger, and Extended’s network migration
Lighter said it will hold its third-quarter investor call on Oct. 21. According to the project’s official X account, the call is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Eastern Time, and founder Vladimir Novakovski will share project updates before a Q&A session.
The merger project combining decentralized exchanges Aerodrome and Velodrome, called Aero, is scheduled to begin its upgrade and merger at 8 p.m. Eastern Time on Oct. 21. Emissions for both legacy platforms will stop at that point. Existing AERO will convert to new AERO on a 1:1 basis, while each VELO will convert into about 0.044 AERO. The same ratio applies to liquid and locked tokens. In the new token supply, Aerodrome holders will receive 94.5% and Velodrome holders 5.5%. As of Oct. 9, the two platforms had a combined total value locked of about $422 million. Existing veAERO and veVELO locks will become new sAERO positions with the remaining lock duration carried over, but migration must be completed manually through the official portal. Self-custodied assets will not convert automatically. Dromos Labs announced the merger in November 2025.
Solana development team Anza said the Alpenglow upgrade will go live on mainnet-beta on the evening of Oct. 21 Beijing time, or around 14:50 UTC. Anza said the upgrade took 18 months to develop and that the mainnet migration will be completed within a single slot. After the upgrade, Solana’s finality is expected to fall from the current range of several seconds to about 150 milliseconds.
On-chain perpetual futures platform Extended said it will migrate its settlement network from Starknet to Arc next week. Trading will continue during the migration, though deposits and withdrawals may be paused for about two hours. After the move, the platform will use USDC to pay gas fees and plans to expand perpetual trading across stocks, commodities and crypto assets. Because Arc does not support USDT and wBTC, users holding more than $1 worth of those assets must swap or withdraw them before 20:00 on Oct. 21. Otherwise, accounts may face restrictions and related positions may be forcibly closed.
Oct. 22: Starknet vote closes and Bitwise winds down BWOW
According to the Starknet community forum, the community launched a seven-day non-binding vote to ask STRK holders whether Starknet should explore a transition into an independent quantum-resistant Layer 1. If supported, the project will begin research and prepare follow-up proposals. If rejected, it will continue work on quantum resistance at the Layer 2 level. In either case, STRK will remain the token in use, no new token will be issued, and the Ethereum bridge will stay open. No timeline has been set for any transition.
As of Oct. 18, the research proposal on whether Starknet should continue moving toward Layer 1 had received more than 345 million votes in favor, or 99.95%, versus about 157,700 votes against, or 0.05%. Voting is scheduled to end on Oct. 22.
Bitwise said in an official notice that the Bitwise Dogecoin ETF (BWOW) will be liquidated and closed. Oct. 14 was its final trading day on NYSE Arca, and investors will receive the fund’s net asset value in cash on Oct. 22. Bitwise said the move is part of ongoing product line optimization to match changing investor demand.
Oct. 23: Support sunsets, an ETF filing update, and another unlock
Venus Protocol said it will stop supporting opBNB, Optimism and Unichain on Oct. 23. Users with open positions on those three chains are advised to close positions and withdraw funds before that date.
Metis said via its official X account that Metis Andromeda will end support for Stargate on Oct. 23, and the LayerZero V1 route must be shut down before then. On Oct. 30, LayerZero Labs’ DVN and Executor will also stop serving Metis. Users providing liquidity to Stargate pools on Metis need to withdraw before Oct. 23. Staked positions must first be unstaked, then withdrawn through the Stargate application by selecting Metis Andromeda. Holders of m.USDC, m.USDT, WETH and METIS are not affected because those assets are issued through the official Metis bridge, and minting, redemption and the official Ethereum-Metis bridge will continue to operate normally. Stargate V1 pools are scheduled to close across all chains on Dec. 15.
Firmus, an AI infrastructure company that pivoted from Bitcoin mining, plans to raise as much as $5.5 billion in an IPO at a valuation of about $30.6 billion, with trading expected to begin on the Australian Securities Exchange on Oct. 23. The company plans to allocate about half of the offered shares, including any greenshoe option, to selected existing strategic and financial investors. Previously disclosed investors include Nvidia, Coatue, Blackstone and Jane Street. Firmus was valued at about $10.5 billion after a $2 billion strategic equity financing in August. At the proposed IPO price, that would put its valuation close to tripling in two months. The company develops and operates modular AI factories and currently runs data centers in Melbourne and Singapore.
Sei Network said on X that REX Shares and Osprey Funds have updated their filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for a staked SEI ETF and set Oct. 23 as the proposed effective date. The product is designed to provide spot SEI exposure and staking yield. The two firms have previously filed similar ETF applications tied to NEAR, HYPE, SUI and AVAX.
SOON (SOON) is scheduled to unlock about 20.24 million tokens at 16:30 Beijing time on Oct. 23, equal to about 3.50% of circulating supply and worth about $6.3 million.
Oct. 24-25: More token unlocks on the calendar
SoSoValue (SOSO) will unlock about 23.46 million tokens at 17:00 Beijing time on Oct. 24, equal to about 5.63% of circulating supply and worth about $6.9 million.
Three more unlocks are scheduled for Oct. 25:
- Plasma (XPL) will unlock about 227 million tokens at 20:00 Beijing time, equal to about 5.02% of circulating supply and worth about $17.9 million.
- Humanity (H) will unlock about 266 million tokens at 08:00 Beijing time, equal to about 6.84% of circulating supply and worth about $15 million.
- ChainOpera AI (COAI) will unlock about 19.55 million tokens at 15:00 Beijing time, equal to about 6.36% of circulating supply and worth about $5 million.