GoKawiil
Tech News
Companies that converted bitcoin-mining operations into AI data centers are discovering that the new business carries its own instability, rather than offering a calmer alternative to crypto mining. The shift, driven by hopes of steadier returns from leasing computing power to AI firms, has not shielded these operators from market and operational turbulence.
Brazil's largest crypto exchange, Mercado Bitcoin, suspended all deposits and withdrawals on Monday after wallets it controls sent over $40 million to attacker-controlled addresses across at least 10 blockchains. The company says it has contained the breach, found no customer losses or data leaks, and is working with law enforcement while tracing the funds.
Binance said it has begun resuming withdrawals in phases by network and asset type after freezing all deposits and withdrawals following a $6.3 billion theft from its wallets. The exchange said it has now covered 95% of the stolen funds and is still sourcing less liquid assets to cover the rest, pledging to absorb all losses itself rather than pass them to users. The FBI has attributed the breach to the North Korean hacking group TraderTraitor.
Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, was reportedly the target of a $6.3 billion theft attributed to a North Korean hacking group. The breach, disclosed Friday, triggered declines in bitcoin and other major tokens as crypto markets reacted to the news.
A glossary-style explainer traces Bitcoin's price swings, noting it passed $100,000 in December 2024, reached $120,000 in July 2025 amid US regulatory debate, hit roughly $126,000 in October 2025, then fell below $65,000 in early February 2026. The piece also notes Donald Trump's shift from calling Bitcoin a 'scam' to pledging to make the US the 'crypto capital of the world', and reiterates that Bitcoin's creator, known as Satoshi Nakamoto, remains unidentified.
Datavault AI disclosed that it has been unable to withdraw approximately $65 million worth of bitcoin from a little-known cryptocurrency exchange for the past four months. The company's stock price fell sharply following the disclosure.
Electrum released version 4.8.3 on October 24 to fix a vulnerability that allowed a rogue server to intercept a user's unconfirmed transaction and replace it with a fake one directing funds to an attacker. Because Electrum relies on third-party servers and previously didn't verify signatures on incoming transaction data, users attempting to speed up a 'stuck' payment via replace-by-fee could unknowingly sign a replacement that paid the attacker instead. Developer SomberNight's advisory cites at least two real-world reports, including one confirmed loss of funds.
A hacker breached an intentionally vulnerable server running unpatched PHP software, claiming a Bitcoin bounty posted on the Steal My Bitcoin website. The prize, initially worth around $502, grew through donations to 0.02511679 BTC ($2,021.22) before being claimed at 15:47 UTC on October 25, about 19.28 hours after the challenge began. The creator, 'cloudlandsdev', set up the test to see if the recently disclosed CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619 PHP vulnerabilities, patched on October 21, could actually be exploited in practice.
Bitcoin Core merged a policy change on October 22, 2026, allowing fixes for vulnerabilities that are easy to rediscover to be backported and disclosed within days rather than after a year-long embargo. The change, authored by developer Antoine Poinsot, explicitly cites AI tools' ability to resurface old bugs, and follows research showing 43.6% of sampled network peers run unpatched software.
Webull announced on October 20 that it will offer Bitcoin perpetual futures to its roughly 6 million US clients starting in November. The product, pioneered by crypto exchanges, lets traders hold leveraged long or short positions with no expiration date, using a funding-rate mechanism to keep contract prices aligned with spot Bitcoin. Webull did not disclose specific funding rates, margin requirements, or contract specifications in its announcement.
CME Group began trading Uniswap (UNI) and Bitcoin Cash futures on October 20, 2026, with the first trade a block deal between market makers FalconX and GSR. Uniswap said UNI is now the first DeFi protocol token to have futures listed on CME, a regulated US derivatives exchange.
Project Timestamper has cryptographically timestamped the entire Common Crawl archive, covering 339 billion web page snapshots gathered over 18 years and totaling more than 10 petabytes. Using existing hash blocks of up to 3,000 index entries provided by Common Crawl, the team hashed roughly 134 million blocks and committed them via the OpenTimestamps service to the Bitcoin blockchain as of September 26, 2026.