Market Insights October 2026

October saw major developments across regulation, institutional adoption and market infrastructure, with tokenisation gaining ground and security risks back in focus.

Regulation

• The CFTC opened a 60-day consultation on 5 October on a federal framework for retail crypto trading. It proposes an optional "crypto asset market" registration category, using existing powers after CLARITY failed.
• CFTC Chairman Michael Selig asked on 28 October whether AI trading agents need "know-your-agent" checks. The CFTC will host a roundtable on 24/7 derivatives trading on 15 December.
• The CFTC proposed classifying sports, political and weather event contracts as swaps. Casino-style products were excluded from the swap definition with immediate effect.
• The CFTC sued Utah on 27 October to stop state action against registered prediction markets. Utah then filed felony charges against Kalshi and its two co-founders. Polymarket US sued Ohio over its sports contracts.
• The OCC granted Ripple final approval for a national trust bank on 26 October. It will hold RLUSD reserves and offer institutional custody. The ICBA sued the OCC on 2 October over crypto trust charters.
• Circle asked the SEC to treat GENIUS-compliant stablecoins as cash. It requested that the 2% broker-dealer haircut be cut to zero.
• Coinbase converted EEA users' remaining USDT, PYUSD, USD1 and 11 other non-MiCA stablecoins on 30 October. Balances were converted mostly into USDC.
• France's National Assembly voted 38 to 37 to tax crypto-to-stablecoin swaps as sales from 1 January 2027. The measure still needs Senate approval.
• The Central Bank of Ireland fined Coinbase Ireland €3.25M for customer-fund safeguarding failures.
• The Bank of Russia admitted its first five digital depositaries and four crypto exchangers on 6 October, including Sberbank and VTB. Sberbank plans its first BTC, ETH and USDT products on 1 December.
• The FSB told G20 ministers that cross-border stablecoin oversight is still immature. Stablecoins total about $300B, 99% pegged to the dollar.
• The US Treasury sanctioned 10 individuals and one entity over North Korean IT-worker crypto fraud.

TradFi

• Standard Chartered launched BTC and ETH trading for affluent UAE clients through their bank accounts. The service is VARA-licensed, built with Zodia Markets and opens first to Professional Investor clients.
• FINMA approved Switzerland's first retail ETF holding Bitcoin directly on 20 October.
• Interactive Brokers launched ETH staking for eligible clients through Zero Hash.

Payments

• Mastercard and BVNK launched Global Money Platform on 15 October. Banks, fintechs and enterprises can combine fiat and stablecoin accounts through one API.
• Western Union chose Noah to pay out remittances in its Solana-based USDPT stablecoin. The service will cover 200+ countries and territories.
• SoFi launched SOFIE, an FDIC-insured tokenised deposit paying 4.40% APY. It converts 1:1 into its SoFiUSD stablecoin.
• Tether signed an MoU with Kazakhstan's central bank to explore a tenge-pegged stablecoin and a tokenisation pilot.
• A BIS working paper found stablecoin growth slows when bank deposit rates rise. The effect was driven mainly by USDC.
• The ECB plans a 12-month digital euro pilot from the second half of 2027. Russia opened 220,000+ digital rouble accounts in the first month, against a forecast of 60,000.

Tokenisation and infrastructure

• The DTCC Tokenization Service went live on 28 October with 20 firms, including J.P. Morgan, Citi, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley. It runs on Canton and DTCC's private Besu network.
• J.P. Morgan Asset Management brought its MONY and JLTXX tokenised money market funds to Solana. JLTXX is designed to support GENIUS Act stablecoin issuers.
• Aviva Investors launched a tokenised share class of its £22B Sterling Liquidity Fund on the XRP Ledger with Ripple.
• Securitize launched tokenised US stocks on Solana backed 1:1 by shares, including Apple, Nvidia and Tesla. Holders get voting rights and dividends.
• 16 public companies, including Microsoft, Alphabet and Goldman Sachs, objected to OKXICE TSV tokenising their stock.
• Bank Negara Malaysia launched SSDS+ on 20 October for tokenised bonds and sukuk settled in central bank money.
• The IMF put the tokenised RWA market at about $65B. It warned of new leverage and liquidity risks.
• Ondo launched Private Markets, giving eligible investors tokenised exposure to a pre-IPO AI company.
• Sui's Hashi began its mainnet rollout with $500M+ committed. Anchorage Digital joined as a day-one partner.
• Securitize and LG CNS signed an MoU on tokenisation and stablecoin infrastructure in Korea.

Derivatives

• ICE agreed on 29 October to build a regulated US perpetual futures market based on Hyperliquid with Trade[XYZ]. ICE is investing in Trade[XYZ]. HYPE rose about 17%.
• Ripple Prime launched RWA perpetual swaps for institutions, with Virtu as a client. They cover 100+ markets including equities, metals, energy and FX.
• Kalshi Prime and BitGo launched HODL Margining. Clients borrow USD against BTC, ETH or stablecoins in custody to fund futures margin.
• The Hyperliquid Policy Center asked the European Commission to regulate perpetuals under MiFID II rather than MiCA.

Capital

• Strategy bought no Bitcoin in the week of 19 to 25 October and holds about 848,517 BTC. It spent $204.9M buying back STRC preferred stock that week and reported a $20.91B Q3 digital-asset gain.
• Bitmine holds about 6.04M ETH, 4.9% of supply. Chairman Tom Lee said purchases will stop at 5%.
• Strive bought 4,045 BTC, lifting holdings to 36,818 BTC. It priced a $700M offering of SATS preferred stock.
• Metaplanet set Bitcoin at 85% to 90% of total assets. It held 44,000 BTC at 30 September.
• Payward, Kraken's parent, agreed to acquire Lithuania-licensed Saldo Bank. Closing is expected in 2027.
• SkyAI sold its entire SOL treasury to fund a tender offer of up to $201M.

Markets

• Binance reported a security incident affecting about $6.3B of assets on 29 October, the largest on record. Tether froze $1.567B USDT and Circle froze $800M+ USDC. BTC fell to about $77,400 and liquidations reached $1.5B.
• US CPI rose 3.7% year on year in September, above forecasts. BTC fell below $82,000 on the release.
• Liquidations reached $939M on 15 October as BTC dipped below $80,000. Longs accounted for 84%.
• US spot BTC ETFs lost $386.3M in the first week of October. On 21 October they took in $528.4M, led by IBIT and FBTC.
• US spot ETH ETFs posted nine straight days of outflows, totalling $697.4M.
• Bitwise raised its 10-year forecast to $1.6M per BTC by 2036. Citi raised its 12-month targets to $113,000 for BTC and $3,028 for ETH.

The focus now shifts to the Binance investigation, Sberbank's planned crypto launch on 1 December, and the CFTC's 24/7 trading roundtable on 15 December.

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