Crypto Market Update: Kalshi Launches Never-Expiring Stock Contract

Bitcoin price update

Bitcoin (BTC) was priced at US$83,371.36, trading 2.7 percent lower over the past 24 hours.

The cryptocurrency slid overnight as renewed attacks in the Strait of Hormuz lifted oil prices and long-term US treasury yields, pulling stocks back from levels seen on Tuesday (October 6).

The drop played out much as Glassnode’s weekly report had warned it could.

The firm said the rally “now leans on positioning more than on fresh demand,” with recent buyers selling into the breakout. Most of the price levels where leveraged traders would be forced out sit below the market.

Glassnode had also warned that altcoins, where borrowing was stretched, would “feel it too” if Bitcoin slid.

Glassnode sees US$81,000, where the largest block of buy orders sits, as “the level to watch if the slide continues.” Dan Khus, chief analyst at LVRG Research, believes the selling is more contained, telling Bloomberg that the drop looks like “a leverage flush instead of a downward trend.”

Bitcoin price chart

Ether and altcoin price update

• Ethereum (ETH) was priced at US$2,569.19, trading 5.1 percent lower over the last 24 hours.

• XRP (XRP) was priced at US$1.42, down 5.4 percent over the past 24 hours.

• Solana (SOL) was trading at US$115.79, trading 3.9 percent lower over the past 24 hours.

Today's crypto news to know

Read on for a round-up of the biggest crypto market news:

• Kalshi launches stock index contract that never expires
• Stablecoin firm Rain applies for trust bank charter as community banks sue
• OKX adds Circle and Standard Chartered’s venture arm as investors
• Conduit sues Tether over US$2.76 million freeze
• Hayes warns of AI crash, bets on crypto rally
• Winklevoss Twins file for Zcash ETF
• Tangem adds physical Visa cards to crypto payment service

Kalshi launches stock index contract that never expires

Kalshi, known for contracts on elections, sports and economic data, opened trading on Tuesday in a futures contract with no expiration date that is tied to the 500 largest US companies.

Kalshi submitted the contract to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in August.

The contract tracks the MerQube US Large Cap Index and is settled in cash. Instead of expiring, buyers and sellers exchange a payment every trading day at 4:00 p.m. EST that keeps the contract’s price close to the index. It is open only to US customers and can be traded with borrowed money, which makes both gains and losses bigger. Kalshi’s maximum leverage was 15.3 times on launch day, so a small move in the index can wipe out a position.

Stablecoin firm Rain applies for trust bank charter as community banks sue

A stablecoin company is seeking to become a federally supervised trust bank, a type of bank that holds assets for clients but doesn’t take deposits or make loans, days after community banks went to court to close that route.

On Monday (October 5), Rain, a stablecoin payments company, applied to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to set up Rain National Trust Bank in New York.

It would hold digital assets and dollars for institutional clients, manage reserves for stablecoin issuers and issue its own dollar stablecoins under the GENIUS Act. It would not take deposits or offer consumer accounts.

Rain’s application comes after a lawsuit filed on October 2 by the Independent Community Bankers of America, which argues the OCC has overstepped its authority by letting crypto firms get trust charters without meeting the rules traditional banks face. The group is asking the court to strike down an OCC rule from March and a related interpretation, and to cancel the conditional charter granted to crypto company Protego.

“Congress did not create the national trust charter as a side door into the banking system for crypto firms,” said Independent Community Bankers of America CEO Rebeca Romero Rainey.

OKX adds Circle and Standard Chartered’s venture arm as investors

Crypto exchange OKX said on Tuesday that it brought in new investors at a US$25 billion valuation, the same level as its March round, when Intercontinental Exchange (NYSE:ICE), the owner of the NYSE, invested.

The new backers are Circle (NYSE:CRCL), the listed issuer of the USDC stablecoin; Ripple; SC Ventures, Standard Chartered Bank's (LSE:STAN,OTCPL:SCBFF) investment arm; and trading firm Qube Research & Technologies.

OKX did not say how much it raised.

“We didn’t raise capital because we needed it,” OKX CEO Star Xu said on X, adding that the company chose partners who share its plans for stablecoins, payments and institutional markets.

Conduit sues Tether over US$2.76 million freeze

Cross-border payments company Conduit is suying Tether in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleging the stablecoin issuer unlawfully froze US$2.76 million in its treasury wallet.

The lawsuit brings claims of conversion, unjust enrichment, breach of fiduciary duty and computer fraud against Tether for keeping the funds locked since September 2025.

Conduit states that Tether froze the wallet following a Brazilian police probe into an outside firm called Onix, even though the wallet never held Onix funds. Brazilian police confirmed they never flagged the wallet, indicating Tether's internal T3 Financial Crime Unit made the decision independently. The freeze forced Conduit to lay off employees and close offices after blocking a wallet that processed over US$1.1 billion in four months.

Conduit contends Tether continues to collect interest on the US Treasury securities backing the locked tokens.

Separately and more recently, Tether signed a memorandum of understanding with the National Bank of Kazakhstan and the Alatau City Authority to explore stablecoins and asset tokenization. The agreement includes plans to pilot a stablecoin pegged to the tenge and test tokenization using Tether's Hadron platform.

Hayes warns of AI crash, bets on crypto rally

Former BitMEX CEO Arthur Hayes told attendees at the Gamma Prime Investing Conference in Singapore that humanity is "wasting multi-trillion dollars" on artificial intelligence (AI) data center construction.

Speaking as chief investment officer of Maelstrom, Hayes predicted that the current AI buildout will result in market overcapacity, a financial crash and a subsequent government bailout. Hayes argued that liquidity from an eventual bailout will ultimately benefit Bitcoin and the broader cryptocurrency market.

"Thankfully, we have bitcoin and other crypto to soak up that excess liquidity, and so we know the asset that’s going to perform the best when the bailout comes," Hayes stated, adding that investors "just have to be patient."

Hayes highlighted unprofitable companies like SpaceX (NASDAQ:SPCX), OpenAI and Anthropic as key drivers of compute demand that face massive payment obligations when data center capacity delivers in late 2027 or 2028.

Hayes further expects the buildout to make computing power extremely cheap and plentiful over the coming years.

Winklevoss Twins file for Zcash ETF

Winklevoss Asset Services filed a preliminary S-1 registration statement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Tuesday to launch the Winklevoss Zcash ETF. The proposed fund plans to list on Nasdaq under the ticker "WINK" with a 0.25 percent annual sponsor fee and Gemini Trust Company acting as custodian.

Winklevoss Capital Fund indicated interest in purchasing up to US$100 million in shares through affiliated entities.

The SEC filing highlights a June vulnerability in Zcash's Orchard privacy pool that could have allowed an attacker to create counterfeit ZEC. The filing cautioned that "there is no cryptographic method to determine conclusively whether the vulnerability was exploited prior to remediation." Developers patched the flaw within days during an emergency network upgrade, but ZEC previously plummeted nearly 40 percent upon its initial disclosure.

The filing represents the third spot Zcash exchange-traded fund application submitted to regulators.

Tangem adds physical Visa cards to crypto payment service

Tangem, a Swiss crypto company whose wallets let users hold their own coins instead of leaving them on an exchange, has launched physical Visa (NYSE:V) cards for Tangem Pay, its service for spending crypto from those wallets.

The cards work anywhere Visa is accepted, including ATMs, where withdrawals are capped at US$250 per transaction and three per day. The first run is limited to 5,000 cards, issued in the user’s name.

Tangem is also adding cashback paid in USDC, a stablecoin tied to the US dollar, instead of points or its own token. Basic users get 1 percent, and Plus users get 2 percent back on purchases of US$30 or more, up to US$100 and US$300 a month. Card purchases carry no transaction fees, though currency conversion fees can apply, and cashback eligibility varies by region and type of merchant.

“Crypto should work wherever people live their everyday lives, not only inside a wallet or an exchange,” said Andrey Ilinskiy, head of Tangem Pay.