ether

U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal has launched an investigation into the payment of approximately $6.3 million by the stablecoin issuer Tether to the consulting firm Nxum. Nxum was co-founded by former White House cryptocurrency advisor Bo Hines, who holds one-third of the company's shares. On October 22, Blumenthal sent a letter to Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino, requesting the contracts between the two parties, cryptocurrency payment records, wallet addresses, and communication content.Tether is accused of paying Nxum $415,000 per month since May 2025 for strategic communications, lobbying, and public relations services. Blumenthal pointed out that Bo Hines, while serving as the executive director of the White House Digital Assets Advisory Committee, still held shares in Nxum and coordinated affairs with the company through encrypted communication applications. He also questioned whether Tether transferred cryptocurrency through the marketing company Notorious and then allocated funds to Nxum shareholders. Tether began directly contracting with Nxum after August 2025 and hired Bo Hines to oversee the newly established U.S. operations. Blumenthal has requested that Tether, Nxum, and related parties respond by November 6, noting that the relevant allegations have not yet formed a legal determination, and Tether has not publicly responded.

ether.fi announced the acquisition of the cryptocurrency wallet Zeal Wallet. Zeal users can currently migrate directly within the Zeal app to ether.fi.After the migration, users can utilize the lending, yield, stock, and gold trading services provided by ether.fi. This announcement has not yet disclosed the specific acquisition amount and transaction terms.

The official announcement from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange reported that the business data for the third quarter of 2026 showed revenue reaching 1.737 billion USD, a year-on-year increase of approximately 13%, setting a new record for the third quarter; net profit was about 1 billion USD.During the same period, the average daily trading volume of all CME products reached 29.4 million contracts, with the average daily trading volume of cryptocurrency derivatives at approximately 196,000 contracts, and the nominal trading volume for the quarter was about 469.5 billion USD. Among them, the nominal trading volume for Bitcoin and Ethereum derivatives was 326.7 billion USD and 118.8 billion USD, respectively.

Binance founder Zhao Changpeng stated, "I am often asked whether my entrepreneurial ideas are feasible, as if my opinion is that important. As long as the team's execution ability is strong enough, 99% of ideas are good.The problem is that 98% of teams cannot execute effectively. Therefore, there is no need to promote entrepreneurial ideas; just demonstrate execution ability."

CoinGecko's report on the cryptocurrency industry for the third quarter of 2026 shows that the total market capitalization of cryptocurrencies increased by 39.6% quarter-on-quarter, rising by $840.1 billion to approximately $3 trillion, ending three consecutive quarters of decline and marking the largest quarterly increase since the fourth quarter of 2024. However, the total market capitalization is still down 4% year-to-date.In terms of mainstream assets, Ethereum (ETH) rose 71% in the quarter to $2,684, outperforming Bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies, with net inflows into spot ETH ETFs reaching $3.1 billion for the quarter. Hyperliquid (HYPE) surged to an all-time high of $98, driven by favorable regulatory news in the U.S., with a quarterly increase of 40.5%. Meanwhile, trading activity failed to keep pace with the price rebound. The average daily trading volume in the cryptocurrency market decreased by 8.6% quarter-on-quarter to $73.3 billion, while the spot trading volume of the top ten centralized exchanges fell by 14.2% to $1.65 trillion. Binance's spot market share rose to 42.7%, up from 38.7% in the second quarter; the total open interest in perpetual contracts on centralized exchanges grew by 40.6% quarter-on-quarter, surpassing $100 billion at the end of the quarter for the first time since the third quarter of 2025.

According to Rootdata, yesterday (Eastern Time October 22), the total net outflow of Ethereum spot ETFs was $111 million.The Ethereum spot ETF with the highest net outflow on that day was BlackRock ETF ETHA, with a net outflow of $75.5 million. As of that trading day, ETHA has a historical cumulative net inflow of $12.279 billion.Following that was BlackRock ETF ETHB, with a net outflow of $17.2 million. As of that trading day, ETHB has a historical cumulative net inflow of $822 million.

According to Rootdata, on October 21, 2026 (Eastern Time), the total net inflow of Ethereum spot ETFs for the day was $14.9 million.The Ethereum spot ETF with the highest net inflow for the day was Grayscale Ethereum Trust ETF ETH, with a net inflow of $28.1 million.Following that was Fidelity ETF FETH, with a net inflow of $13 million.

According to monitoring data from Arkham, the ether.fi team marked an address that transferred 3.5 million ETHFI to address 0xB20 again, worth approximately 2.28 million USD.This address received 1.255 million ETHFI about 12 months ago, suspected to be a smart contract address with an associated vesting unlock feature, which means that ether.fi currently has nearly 5 million ETHFI available for free disposal and has not yet been staked.

Tether-supported Utexo has now opened early access to Utexo Mint, allowing professional operators to test the cross-chain version of USDT on the Bitcoin Signet (Bitcoin testnet), with the official launch date set for November 28.In the Bitcoin Signet sandbox environment, operators can test minting, privacy transfers, and redemption functions. Utexo will also provide related tools for managing cross-network liquidity and facilitating exchanges between fiat currency and the Utexo cross-chain version of USDT. According to previous news, Tether-supported Utexo plans to issue USDT on the Bitcoin network this month, supporting privacy transfers and direct exchanges with BTC.

According to SoSoValue data, the total net outflow of Ethereum spot ETFs is $111 million. The Ethereum spot ETF with the highest net inflow in a single day is Fidelity ETF FETH, with a single-day net inflow of $2.3729 million. Currently, the historical total net inflow of FETH has reached $2.357 billion.The Ethereum spot ETF with the highest net outflow in a single day is Blackrock ETF ETHA, with a single-day net outflow of $75.4543 million. Currently, the historical total net inflow of ETHA has reached $12.261 billion. As of the time of writing, the total net asset value of Ethereum spot ETFs is $14.571 billion, and the ETF net asset ratio (the market value as a percentage of Ethereum's total market value) is 5.01%. The historical cumulative net inflow has reached $12.715 billion.

On October 22, the smart contract security company ChainSecurity announced that the Glamsterdam hard fork on the Ethereum Hoodi testnet has been postponed. Researchers stated that security impacts have been found in existing contracts and identified 13 real cases, and they are currently conducting responsible disclosure with the affected projects. The announcement requests teams to review the contracts, and the Ethereum Foundation is assessing the scope of the impact; the announcement did not name the projects, provide contract addresses, or give an alternative fork date.The related issues involve contracts that continue execution after capturing failed external calls. Under the reviewed gas changes, the failure handler may complete execution, whereas it would previously roll back due to gas exhaustion. The caller can deliberately provide insufficient gas to complete the target operation, but enough to allow the outer contract to record a permanent failure, causing operations that could have been retried to lose their recovery path.The technical disclosure reviews EIP-8037 and EIP-8038 from the version specification dated October 13, where the gas examples described are for proposed execution behavior. The state-gas reservoir will be fully passed with the call, and forwarding restrictions apply to execution gas, with gasleft() only reporting the execution balance. According to the reviewed rules, clearing storage slots that start at zero at the beginning of a transaction can replenish up to 97,920 execution gas; intermediary contracts may also credit back the accounted state-creation fees upon REVERT and return them to the caller.

The chief Democratic member of the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Richard Blumenthal, sent a letter on Thursday to Tether and its U.S. subsidiary CEO Bo Hines regarding the consulting firm Nxum Group, which Hines co-founded, requesting clarification on the arrangements related to Tether's payments to Nxum. According to The Wall Street Journal, Nxum received substantial payments for providing consulting services to Tether while Bo Hines was still serving as a White House crypto advisor and involved in shaping crypto policies, including those concerning stablecoin issuers.In his letter to Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino, Blumenthal stated that the unusual terms and nature of the business relationship between Tether, Nxum, and Bo Hines raised serious ethical and legal concerns, implying that Tether likely knew that making payments to a current White House official directly involved in shaping critical legislation for its business was illegal and improper. A Tether spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. CoinDesk previously reported that Nxum, as a major campaign advertising supplier for a political action committee associated with Tether, received millions of dollars in revenue, despite having little prior political experience, and recently hired another White House crypto advisor, Harry Jung.Blumenthal has recently focused on the crypto space, including Trump's meme coin, World Liberty Financial, and activities involving Binance, particularly Tether. He has released reports on Tether's financial connections with Iran and questioned its relationship with U.S. financial partner Cantor Fitzgerald. Ardoino criticized Blumenthal this week for ignoring important information and sharing the report with the media before giving the company a chance to respond. The prediction market Kalshi shows a 69% probability that Democrats will regain control of the Senate, and if Blumenthal leads the subcommittee, he will gain greater subpoena and agenda control.

According to PR Newswire, the blockchain asset management firm CMCC Global announced the tokenization of its Crest Fund (Crest) and Liberty Bitcoin Accumulation Fund (LBAF), calling them the first tokenized master fund products issued under El Salvador's digital asset legal framework.The two funds will be issued using Tether's Hadron tokenization platform and will raise funds from qualified investors through the regulated Bitfinex Securities platform, with the subscription period ending on October 30, 2026. Both funds are multi-manager quantitative hedge funds that invest in market-neutral strategies in the digital asset market, including funding rates, cross-exchange and volatility arbitrage, market making, and DeFi strategies. Among them, Crest is denominated in USD, targeting returns above U.S. Treasury yields; LBAF is denominated in Bitcoin, targeting a net annualized return of 8% to 12%.BTCS S.A., a digital asset treasury company listed in Poland and Frankfurt, has agreed to act as a cornerstone investor and plans to allocate a three-digit number of Bitcoins to LBAF, with the specific amount not yet disclosed. The token issuance price is set at $10 per CREST and 0.0001 BTC per LBAF, with a minimum subscription of one token; eligible holders can also trade on the secondary market through Bitfinex Securities around the clock.

According to CoinDesk, Ben Edgington, the coordinator of the Ethereum rapid finality research direction, along with several researchers, submitted a draft proposing to reduce the transaction finality waiting time from about 16 minutes to about 4 minutes, improving it by approximately four times.The current goal is to push this draft into the formal upgrade proposal process. The core idea of the draft is to separate the original "block selection" and "finality confirmation" mechanisms of validators, allowing finality to progress at a faster pace and facilitating future adoption of quantum-resistant signatures.Faster finality is expected to reduce the costs incurred by cross-chain transfer services due to capital occupation. The Ethereum Foundation's research provides an example: if a service advances about 1 million dollars per hour, under a 16-minute delay, approximately 267,000 dollars would be pending recovery, which could be reduced to about 67,000 dollars after shortening to 4 minutes.

According to SoSoValue data, yesterday (Eastern Time October 21), the total net inflow of Ethereum spot ETFs was $14.955 million, turning into a net inflow after five consecutive days of net outflows.The Ethereum spot ETF with the highest single-day net inflow yesterday was Grayscale Ethereum Trust ETF ETH, with a single-day net inflow of $28.0693 million, bringing the historical total net inflow of ETH to $2.039 billion. The second was Fidelity ETF FETH, with a single-day net inflow of $13.0333 million, currently having a historical total net inflow of $2.355 billion.The Ethereum spot ETF with the highest single-day net outflow yesterday was Blackrock ETF ETHA, with a single-day net outflow of $29.3239 million, currently having a historical total net inflow of $12.336 billion.As of the time of writing, the total net asset value of Ethereum spot ETFs is $15.358 billion, with an ETF net asset ratio (market value as a percentage of Ethereum's total market value) of 5.05%, and the historical cumulative net inflow has reached $12.825 billion.

Ethereum Institutional official X platform has released a recruitment notice, currently hiring a head for the Asia-Pacific region in Tokyo. This role involves establishing partnerships with Japanese banks, financial market infrastructure institutions, asset management companies, and enterprises, as well as planning and organizing communication meetings and presentations aimed at financial institutions and institutional investors, promoting Ethereum as the infrastructure for next-generation financial services.Job requirements include 5 to 7 years of practical experience in banking, asset management, capital markets, payments, or financial infrastructure, proficiency in both Japanese and English at a business level, experience in the digital asset field, particularly in products or collaborative business with financial institutions and institutional investors, and a broad network with Japanese financial institutions and institutional investors.

According to information from GitHub, a core protocol draft named "Decoupled Consensus" has appeared in the Ethereum EIP repository. It proposes to separate the beacon chain's head voting from the finality proof voting to enhance fork choice security, shorten finality time, and lay the groundwork for a subsequent transition to post-quantum cryptography (PQ).The proposal is co-authored by Francesco D'Amato, Roberto Saltini, Yann Vonlanthen, Mikhail Kalinin, and Ben Edgington, and is currently still in the early draft stage, with multiple details yet to be determined. The submitters primarily hope to obtain an EIP number at this stage. The proposal is pending further review and has not yet been merged.

According to The Defiant, as JPMorgan launched its token JPMD on Ethereum, 13 counterfeit tokens with the same name appeared in the market. JPMorgan's official documentation warns that the tokens with the same name on other addresses are not related to the bank.The bank's genuine Ethereum token currently shows zero supply and zero holders.

On-chain data analysis account Lookonchain posted on X that on October 21, Bitcoin ETF had a net outflow of 403 BTC in a single day, approximately 33.88 million dollars; over the past 7 days, there was a net inflow of 2,528 BTC, approximately 212 million dollars.During the same period, Ethereum ETF had a net outflow of 12,700 ETH in a single day, approximately 31.42 million dollars; over the past 7 days, there was a net outflow of 155,100 ETH, approximately 384 million dollars.

According to official news, Tether announced that it will lead the Pre-Seed round financing of the Bolivian fintech company Peso, with the specific amount undisclosed.Peso provides global USDT accounts for Latin American users, allowing them to save, spend, invest, and make cross-border remittances through the same app. Peso has integrated USDT payments on the Bolivian digital service platform Yango, enabling users to order takeout directly with USDT; in addition, Peso also offers offline payment services and virtual accounts opened in the user's name, connecting USDT with the Bolivian banking system through QR codes and ACH channels, facilitating the conversion between stablecoins and local fiat currency.This round of funding will be used to expand Peso's local fiat deposit and withdrawal channels in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, and Argentina, and to advance its merchant payment network and virtual account infrastructure construction.