Weekly: Over $1 Trillion with Elon Musk, USDC in Samsung, $1 Billion Investigation into Chinese Syndicate, and AI Threat to Cryptography

The Incrypted editorial team has prepared another digest of the main events in the fields of cryptocurrency, blockchain, and artificial intelligence for the week. This time, attention was drawn to Samsung's plans to integrate stablecoins into its Wallet, ZachXBT's investigation into possible money laundering of over $1 billion, Tether's collaboration with Kazakhstan, a trillion dollars with Musk, the policy of using Claude, potential risks to cryptography due to the development of AI, and much more.

Main News

Bitcoin

• Market and Analytics
  VanEck has predicted Bitcoin will rise to $3 million by 2050, calling it a long-term hedge against dollar depreciation, while Grayscale calculated that without the ten best trading days, the three-year return of the asset would drop from 225% to 27%. According to Santiment, large holders accumulated 86,702 BTC over three weeks, and a net outflow of 24,073 BTC from exchanges in one day was the largest in seven months.

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At the same time, CryptoQuant linked Bitcoin's correction to weak spot demand and a reduction in open interest in derivatives, while on October 7, holders realized about $1.03 billion in profits. Separately, the U.S. government moved 833.6 BTC and 40,285 BNB, totaling over $100 million, and the transfer of some Bitcoins to Coinbase Prime raised speculation about a possible sale. At the time of writing, the first cryptocurrency is trading at $83,058, according to TradingView. BTC/USDT chart on Binance. Source: TradingView .

• Cryptocurrency Funds
  At the end of September and the beginning of October, spot Bitcoin ETFs in the U.S. attracted $82.93 million in a week, Ethereum ETFs lost $117.91 million, and ZEC ETFs recorded their first weekly outflow of $93.56 million since inception. Meanwhile, NEAR ETFs attracted $35.99 million in their first week of trading, showing positive dynamics amid mixed results from other funds.

This week, the situation worsened: from October 5 to 9, Bitcoin ETFs lost $681.1 million, and Ethereum ETFs lost $542.07 million, totaling over $1.2 billion in outflows. Among altcoin funds, NEAR ETFs again stood out with an inflow of $35.99 million, while SOL ETFs lost $24.81 million.

• Crypto Business and Personalities
  Binance founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ) has not stepped back from the crypto industry after four months of imprisonment in the U.S.; instead, he strengthened ties with UAE elites and began consulting governments of various countries. A major piece in The New York Times describes his journey from an early Bitcoin investor to one of the most influential shareholders of Binance, as well as the criminal case, conflict with FTX, and subsequent "crypto diplomacy" despite being banned from managing the exchange.

Hackers and Scammers

• Security and Fraud
  Crypto users lost about $472,000 due to address poisoning and phishing signatures, while a hacker stole 200 ETH worth about $543,000 from an old MakerDAO contract. In Greece, law enforcement arrested 17 participants of the FXO crypto pyramid, which defrauded at least 10,000 people and caused losses of $8 million, promising to double investments in 50 days.

• ZachXBT Investigation
  Crypto detective ZachXBT infiltrated a Chinese criminal syndicate posing as a client, which he estimates laundered over $1 billion from cryptocurrency exploits linked to the North Korean Lazarus Group. For the investigation, he invested $349,700 of his own funds and deliberately lost about 5% on each order to gain access to information about the movement of stolen assets.

• Hardware Wallets and Asset Protection

Ledger has launched an investigation into reports of cryptocurrency theft from users of devices purchased through the reseller CryptoBilis in Southeast Asia and has requested to suspend their sale and shipment. According to blockchain researchers, total losses in the Bitcoin, Ethereum, and TRON networks have exceeded $86 million, although the official cause of the incident has not yet been confirmed.

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Elon Musk's Wealth and Business

Elon Musk has become a trillionaire again after the rise in shares of SpaceX and Tesla, with his wealth increasing by $30.6 billion in a single trading day on October 5, according to Forbes. He retains the top spot in the ranking of the world's richest people, surpassing Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, whose wealth was estimated at $371.5 billion, by nearly $630 billion.

Crypto Markets and AI

South Korea has become the largest cryptocurrency market in East Asia from July 2025 to June 2026, reaching a volume of $449.1 billion, according to a Chainalysis report. One of the main drivers has been retail investors actively trading AI tokens, which outpaced other thematic categories in terms of volume in Korean won, including payment tokens like XRP.

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Regulation

• Taxation and Trading Rules

Greece is preparing a bill to introduce a 10% tax on profits from cryptocurrencies, proposing to exempt annual profits up to €500, with the document expected to be submitted to parliament in November.

In the US, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has introduced the first package of rules for the cryptocurrency market, which includes requirements for exchanges registered with the agency and allows for margin trading, leverage, and financing for retail clients.

• Crypto Privacy and Financial Oversight

The US Department of the Treasury has withdrawn two proposed FinCEN rules regarding transactions with non-custodial crypto wallets and operations with crypto mixers. The organization Coin Center called this a victory for financial privacy, as the proposed requirements could have expanded data collection on cryptocurrency transactions and increased government oversight of users.

Stablecoins

• Payment Services

Samsung plans to open access to stablecoins through Samsung Wallet for Galaxy users in the US by the end of October. Initially, the service will support USDC, which can be transferred to compatible crypto wallets worldwide. Users will also be able to send funds to bank accounts in over 60 countries with deposits in local currency.

• Stablecoins and Tokenization

Tether has signed a memorandum with the National Bank of Kazakhstan and the administration of the city of Alatau to explore the issuance of a stablecoin pegged to the tenge and the tokenization of real assets. The parties are also considering a pilot project based on the Hadron platform by Tether.

• Legal Disputes

Conduit Technology has filed a lawsuit against Tether in the federal court of New York over the freezing of approximately $2.76 million in USDT. The company claims that its wallet was not linked to the investigation by Brazilian police and demands the unblocking of funds and compensation for damages.

Artificial Intelligence

• AI and Security

In Florida, Carly Michelle Heller was arrested for allegedly threatening to shoot the Lee County Sheriff's Office via the Anthropic platform, and the service's security system detected the message and forwarded the information to law enforcement.

At the same time, Anthropic reported instances of unwanted actions by Claude models on real websites of US government agencies, including a false murder report sent through the Philadelphia police website, after which the company halted the relevant testing.

• AI Development and Usage Rules
  Anthropic has launched a free OSS Scanner to find vulnerabilities in open-source software, utilizing its powerful models, including Claude Mythos. The company has also updated its usage policy for Claude, tightening restrictions on surveillance, weaponry, misinformation, and the application of AI in high-risk areas; the new rules will take effect on November 12.

• Cryptography and AI Threats
  Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake warned that the development of artificial intelligence could accelerate the search for ways to crack ECDSA cryptography, potentially allowing the recovery of private keys from public ones within months. Vitalik Buterin supported a cautious approach and urged reducing Ethereum's reliance on cryptographic methods whose security is based on complex mathematical assumptions. Drake emphasized that this is a potential risk, not a confirmed breach of ECDSA, and advised large holders to prepare for possible changes without rushing to migrate assets.

Projects

• Blockchain Infrastructure and Network Development
  Igloo announced the discontinuation of the Abstract blockchain as of December 15, 2026, due to high operational costs, low liquidity, and a limited DeFi ecosystem, instead focusing resources on the Pudgy Penguins brand and the PENGU token.

At the same time, Aptos Labs introduced MonoMove --- an update to the execution engine that accelerated the execution of individual smart contracts by up to 55 times during internal testing, with deployment on the mainnet planned for 2027.

The Cardano Foundation launched the CIP-0113 standard on the mainnet, which allows embedding KYC, AML, sanctions screening, and transfer restrictions rules into tokens for working with regulated assets.

• Privacy and Institutional Adoption
  NEAR Protocol co-founder Ilya Polosukhin stated that privacy is a necessary condition for broader institutional engagement in blockchain, as without it, they cannot fully utilize on-chain infrastructure. Among the promising areas of development in the crypto industry, he also highlighted tokenization, integration of traditional finance, payments, and cross-border transfers.

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Other News:

• Solana Foundation launched DvP for institutional settlement of tokenized assets;
• Cardano founder criticized Buterin for his assessment of post-quantum cryptography risks;
• CryptoQuant analysts are most positive about Solana and Ethereum;
• Google launched a platform for creating games using prompts;
• Base announced plans to tokenize about 500 stocks by the end of the year;
• Securitize announced the launch of a product for trading tokenized stocks based on Solana;
• DWF Labs filed a lawsuit against BitGo for $141 million over token sales before unlocking.

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Additionally, readers can check out the notes from Dida in Singapore about pre-TOKEN2049 and the results of the TOKEN2049 event itself.

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Additionally...

• We have gathered for you in one material the key investments in the field of blockchain, crypto assets, and AI for September.
• We regularly update the Incrypted crypto calendar, where you will find a wealth of interesting events and announcements.