Former SEC boss made AI Czar, Bitcoin may hit $600K this cycle: Hodler’s Digest

Trump taps intel main Jay Clayton to pb caller Super Intelligence Force

President Donald Trump has named Jay Clayton, US manager of nationalist intelligence, to pb the country’s caller Super Intelligence Force, according to a station connected Truth Social connected Sunday.

The announcement followed media reports connected Friday of the appointment. Cointelegraph reported Sept. 20 that Trump planned to make an “AI Force” modeled aft the Space Force and name an artificial quality czar.

“The Super Intelligence Force is tasked with coordinating the effort of the Federal Government to guarantee that America continues to pb the World successful Super Intelligence,” Trump wrote successful his post.

Source: Made with Google AI

Clayton led the Securities and Exchange Commission during Trump’s archetypal word and launched a prosecution against Ripple for selling securities connected his past time successful office, and arsenic U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York led the transgression proceedings against Roman Storm for his engagement successful Tornado Cash. Storm commented:

“It doesn’t look similar we’re headed toward a aboriginal that supports open-source AI.”

Trump’s bully buddy Elon Musk is renaming SpaceXAI to SpaceXSI to grant the President’s directive renaming “artificial intelligence” to “superintelligence.”

Source: Roman Storm

NEAR Intents hack has a blessed ending

NEAR has been riding a question of affirmative sentiment lately and has much than doubled successful terms implicit the past month. This week it received praise successful immoderate quarters — and disapproval successful others — aft its SHIELD AI strategy blocked Bitget’s hacked funds from its INTENTS transverse concatenation swaps platform. Its Bitwise ETF debuted this week with astir $60 cardinal of inflows.

SHEILD besides helped to halt a $3.8 cardinal exploit of NEAR Intents owed to a “bug successful the Omni deposit and withdrawal infrastructure enactment with NEAR Intents astute contract.”
Sentiment flipped bearish for astir 7 and a fractional minutes, until NEAR Intents wide manager Alex Shevchenko posted similar a boss “we person identified you, sir” and issued a 48 hr ultimatum to instrumentality the funds oregon to presumably look the afloat unit of the law.

“You cognize amended than astir however liable disclosure works — this is the past model to usage it. After 48 hours, that model closes.”

The funds were duly returned, and Shevchenko urged different exploiters reasoning of LARPing arsenic achromatic chapeau hackers to “use bug bounties alternatively of disrupting the services.”

The determination to artifact Bitget’s stolen funds was arguable nevertheless and successful stark declaration to THORChain which has refused to artifact swaps connected its platform, pointing to ideals astir decentralization. There is besides a unrecorded statement implicit whether SHIELD blocking funds leaves it legally liable for everything that happens connected the level successful future.

NEAR is down 11% this week.

Arthur Hayes says wealth printing is inevitable

Money printing is coming owed to the AI revolution, the United State’s indebtedness crisis, and expanding fiscal accent successful France, says Arthur Hayes, main concern serviceman astatine Maelstrom fund.

AI companies request trillions of dollars to concern information centers adjacent arsenic the prices of their services fall, Hayes said astatine a fireside chat astatine CONNECT by Cointelegraph: Seoul Edition, connected Tuesday during Korea Blockchain Week.

“They’ve not truly fixed themselves a batch of options different than people wealth and marque it little bad,” helium said.

Hayes besides discussed China perchance moving to monetary stimulus on with expanding fiscal accent successful France, including credit-default swaps tied to BNP Paribas and French authorities enslaved spreads. 

I deliberation the wealth printing volition fundamentally hap astatine immoderate point, but that’s benignant of a dilatory question bid wreck happening underneath the surface.”

BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes speaking astatine CONNECT by Cointelegraph: Seoul Edition.

Blast to upwind down Ethereum L2 aft costs outpace revenue

Ethereum layer-2 web Blast is shutting down after its operating costs exceeded the gross generated by the chain.

In a Friday station connected X, Blast said it sees nary “credible path” to making the web economically sustainable and asked users to retreat their assets to Ethereum mainnet.

“We launched Blast with the extremity of gathering a self-sustaining concatenation for users and developers,” the squad said.

“Unfortunately, the economics of operating the concatenation nary longer marque sense.”
Blast was founded by Tieshun “Pacman” Roquerre, the laminitis of NFT marketplace Blur, successful November 2023 with autochthonal output connected Ether (ETH) and stablecoins and a points programme tied to an anticipated token airdrop.

The strategy helped pull much than $2 cardinal successful deposits earlier its mainnet launched successful February 2024.  Its DeFi full worth locked has fallen by much than 98% since its June 2024 peak, according to DeFiLlama data.

Ethereum schedules Glamsterdam upgrade connected Sepolia for Oct. 6

Ethereum developers person scheduled the network’s adjacent large upgrade, Glamsterdam, to activate connected the Sepolia testnet connected Oct. 6.

Sepolia node operators indispensable update some their execution-layer and consensus-layer clients earlier the activation, the Ethereum Foundation said.

One of Glamsterdam’s changes is enshrined proposer-builder separation. It volition determination the handoff betwixt specialized artifact builders and validators into Ethereum’s protocol, reducing reliance connected extracurricular middleware.

Glamsterdam volition present block-level entree lists, which grounds the accounts and retention locations utilized during each block, and volition alteration parallel processing by clients to velocity up throughput.

Winners and Losers

At the extremity of the week, Bitcoin (BTC) is up 1.4% to commercialized astatine $85,821, Ethereum (ETH) is up 0.6% to commercialized astatine $2,701 and XRP (XRP) is down 0.8% to $1.50. The full marketplace headdress is astatine $2.92 trillion according to CoinMarketCap.

Among the biggest 100 cryptocurrencies, the apical 3 altcoin winners of the week are Midnight (NIGHT) with a 60.6% gain, StarkNet (SRK) connected 14.5%, and Pump.fun (PUMP) connected 26.3%.

The apical 3 altcoin losers of the week are Lighter (LIT) which was down 22.2%, Zcash (SEC) down 16.4% and Ethena (ENA) down 14%.

Prediction of the Week

Peter Brandt says Bitcoin whitethorn deed $600K by 2029

Veteran trader Peter Brandt has flipped bullish, aft informing successful Julyt that prices could autumn into the precocious $40K zone.

“There’s a bully anticipation we person seen the debased and present are entering a caller bull marketplace cycle successful Bitcoin,” Brandt told Cointelegraph connected the latest occurrence of Trade Secrets.

Brandt has besides raised his sights for Bitcoin’s adjacent peak, putting a late-2029 precocious of betwixt $300,000 and $600,000, up from the $250,000 to $300,000 scope helium outlined successful July.

“The bull marketplace rhythm this clip has a precise bully accidental of reaching fractional a million,” helium said.

Top FUD of the Week

Crypto hacks apical $768M successful September, worst period of 2026

Crypto suffered its worst period of the twelvemonth for hacks and exploits successful September, with 2 blockchain information firms estimating losses astatine much than $766 million.

PeckShield counted 55 large incidents resulting successful $766.5 cardinal successful stolen funds, portion CertiK recorded 97 incidents and estimated losses astatine $768.4 million.

The period included the $388 cardinal Bitget hack and a $320 cardinal hack of the Liquid Network. More than $270 cardinal was aboriginal returned, according to reports.

“September was a stark reminder of however rapidly the menace scenery tin shift,” CertiK said.

Other crypto hacks successful the period included Safe Wallet, DCENT, and Duelbits, which mislaid $7.8 million, $6 cardinal and $5.9 million, respectively.

Largest incidents successful September. Source: CertiK

Aave laminitis says V3 unaffected aft third-party adapter exploit drains $305K

Aave laminitis Stani Kulechov said Aave v3 was unaffected by an exploit that drained astir $305,000 from 2 Safe multisig wallets done a third-party adapter built connected apical of the lending protocol.

“This is not Aave v3 contract, it’s 3rd enactment outer adapter built connected apical of Aave, zero effect connected Aave v3,” Kulechov said connected X.

Tether says it helped frost $550M successful Iran-linked USDT this year

Stablecoin issuer Tether said it helped authorities frost astir $550 cardinal successful Iran-linked USDT during 2026,

The institution said it has been moving intimately with planetary instrumentality enforcement for years. This twelvemonth alone, it froze much than $130 cardinal successful USDT crossed 4 wallets, and successful April, it froze much than $344 cardinal linked to the Central Bank of Iran.

The connection from Tether came arsenic Democratic investigators connected the Senate Permanent Subcommittee connected Investigations released a study alleging USDT had go a cardinal transmission for Iran to evade sanctions. 

Investigators recovered that 84% of 846 crypto wallets sanctioned implicit ties to Iran had transacted exclusively oregon astir exclusively successful USDT. The findings prompted US Senator Richard Blumenthal to telephone connected the Treasury and Justice departments to analyse imaginable sanctions violations.

Top Magazine Features of the Week

Furious statement astir THORChain vs NEAR shows idealism has limits

The furious statement implicit Bitget’s $387.7M of hacked funds comes down to whether ideals astir “permissionless and decentralized” tech means ne'er intervening — adjacent if you could.

Could THORChain look prosecution implicit stolen Bitget funds? Legal opinion

THORChain volition not — oregon tin not — artifact addresses linked to the $387.5 cardinal Bitget hack. Can the devs beryllium prosecuted for wealth laundering? It’s complicated, says crypto lawyer Yuriy Brisov.

Stablecoins tin drain from banks and nations astatine lightning speed

Highly liquid and settling 24/7, stablecoins tin permission banks and countries astatine lightning speed. But whether stablecoins are a hazard — oregon an accidental — depends connected your perspective.