Crypto markets on Oct. 9 were driven by a broad set of developments across funding, regulation, security and corporate announcements. Strategy said it will hold its third-quarter 2026 earnings conference call on Oct. 29, while Manus parent company Butterfly Effect announced a financing round worth more than $500 million. Cointelegraph, for its part, issued a public denial of reports that it was seeking a buyer.
Fed governor Waller says more rate hikes may still be needed
Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller said Thursday that additional rate hikes may still be required to bring inflation back to the Fed’s 2% target, though those increases do not need to come at consecutive meetings. His comments left room for the Fed to pause at its upcoming October policy meeting.
Waller said, “If the data continue to come in as expected, I expect that further tightening will be needed to bring inflation back to 2 percent more quickly.” He added, “But there is flexibility on when to implement those rate hikes. We do not need to raise rates at back-to-back meetings, but we should complete the needed tightening within a reasonable time frame.”
He did not specify how much higher policy rates may need to go. Still, he said the case for higher rates has become more apparent as the U.S. economy remains strong, the energy price shock linked to the Iran war has not fully faded, and artificial intelligence infrastructure spending lifts demand for key goods and services, adding to inflation pressure.
79thVault flagged for suspicious activity; SlowMist warns of phishing technique
According to CertiK, decentralized protocol 79thVault saw suspicious activity. The attacker reportedly used a privileged function to dump 2.01 million 79AU and moved 16,200 BNB, worth about $12.5 million, to an attacker-controlled address.
About 90% of the stolen funds remain at the related address, and the project team has offered a 10% bug bounty to that address.
SlowMist founder Cos, also known as Yu Xian, said a bookmark-based phishing method has recently appeared targeting FOMO web users. In the attack flow, users are shown a fake human-verification page and are tricked into dragging malicious JavaScript into their browser bookmarks. After clicking that bookmark two or three times, previously logged-in FOMO accounts can be hijacked and crypto assets in those accounts can be stolen.
Cos said the method is essentially an older exploit technique targeting @privy_io. Because the bookmark executes JavaScript under FOMO’s own domain, active logged-in sessions are exposed directly and users do not need to click a phishing link for the attack to work. SlowMist said samples and attacker wallet addresses have been preserved and that more details will be released later.
Cointelegraph disputes CoinDesk report; Manus announces new financing
CoinDesk had earlier reported that crypto media outlet Cointelegraph was looking for a new buyer because of a sharp drop in traffic data. On Oct. 8, Cointelegraph responded through its official X account, saying the report “contains false information and multiple factual errors,” and adding, “We will not sell, and we will not stay silent.”
In its statement, Cointelegraph accused CoinDesk of trying to attract readers by manufacturing controversy and clickbait, saying that approach damages journalism’s credibility. It also questioned whether CoinDesk’s publisher was trading on sensational headlines for commercial gain. Cointelegraph asked CoinDesk to publicly acknowledge the mistakes and issue a correction with exposure equal to the original story, saying that “credibility comes from accuracy and accountability, not sensationalism.”
Separately, Butterfly Effect, the parent company of Manus, said it recently completed a new financing round worth more than $500 million. The round was co-led by Boyu Capital and IDG Capital. Existing investors Tencent, Sequoia China and ZhenFund also participated.
ESMA gives crypto firms three months to address non-compliant stablecoin exposure
According to Cointelegraph, the European Securities and Markets Authority, or ESMA, urged crypto firms in the European Union to stop offering services involving stablecoins that do not comply with the Markets in Crypto-Assets framework, or MiCA. It set a three-month period for firms to deal with existing risk exposure.
ESMA said national regulators should require firms to resolve remaining exposure to non-compliant stablecoins by Jan. 8, 2027. Under MiCA, licensed crypto-asset service providers, or CASPs, must stop providing EU clients with services tied to non-compliant stablecoins. That includes trading platforms, exchange, order execution, custody, transfers, investment advice and portfolio management.
Crypto firms also need technical, contractual and organizational controls to prevent EU clients from accessing or increasing positions in unauthorized stablecoins. Regulators would allow only temporary services such as liquidation, conversion and withdrawals under strict supervision so customers can exit existing positions.
Vitalik warns AI could speed up cryptographic breaks
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said advances in AI-driven mathematical research could pose a serious threat to current cryptographic systems within the next two years. He specifically pointed to lattice cryptography, ML-DSA and FHE, and said ECDSA could also be broken faster than expected.
Vitalik said AI could produce a breakthrough on the scale of the jump from naive factoring to the number field sieve, sharply weakening the security of lattice-based cryptography. In that scenario, hash-based systems would overtake lattice systems on efficiency, he said. Ethereum’s Lean Roadmap is already moving toward a “pure hash” direction, using WOTS or SPHINCS+ for signatures and avoiding lattice-based components.
He also shared several recommendations for users and builders:
- Prefer hash-based schemes where practical instead of lattice-based cryptography
- Use conservative assumptions for lattice parameters and consider keys 10 times larger
- Avoid putting encrypted privacy-related information on-chain and use third-party offline transmission instead
- Use offline confirmation for multisig wallets to avoid exposing signatures publicly
- It may be reasonable to keep funds in addresses that have never sent a transaction, but any migration should be handled carefully because operational mistakes could cause losses greater than a hack
Moscow Exchange and Strategy outline next steps
TASS reported that Moscow Exchange plans to launch cryptocurrency trading services starting Dec. 1 under a new regulatory framework. Boris Blokhin, the exchange’s senior managing director, said testing would continue before the formal launch.
Strategy said it will hold its third-quarter 2026 earnings conference call at 5 p.m. Eastern Time on Oct. 29. The event will be streamed live on Zoom, X and YouTube.
Machi Big Brother cuts ETH long position
On Oct. 8, @ai_9684xtpa said Huang Licheng, known as Machi Big Brother, closed 4,700 ETH from a long position at a loss, realizing a $570,000 loss. His remaining 24,500 ETH long position was said to be showing an unrealized loss of $3.06 million.
The latest liquidation price for the remaining position was listed at $2,473.56, leaving only $38.22 of room from the current market price. The account said the latest market decline had erased nearly $4 million in floating profit and turned the position into a loss of $3 million.
