Oct 2, 2026 · Crypto & Web3 Daily Digest
Crypto, regulation, and Web3 headlines compiled for Oct 2, 2026, with summaries, links, and commentary.
I. Regulation & Policy
1. SEC Proposes Custody Changes: Conditional Self-Custody When No Permitted Custodian Exists (Regulation)
Summary:
In a statement dated October 1, Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Paul Atkins said the Commission proposed amendments to the custody rules under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 and the Investment Company Act of 1940, giving advisers and funds a compliant path for crypto assets their clients increasingly want. Cointelegraph reported on October 2 that the proposal would let a registered adviser hold a client's crypto itself when the adviser determines that no permitted custodian can maintain that asset, and that the determination must be revisited quarterly. Once a custodian becomes available, the assets would have to be transferred as soon as reasonably practicable. Self-custody would also require safeguards for private keys, cybersecurity, and segregation of each client's holdings, and at least two authorized people would have to approve any transfer. State-chartered trust companies could serve as crypto custodians if they are authorized by the relevant state authority, have reasonable safeguarding procedures, audited financials, and segregated client assets. Comments will be accepted for 60 days after publication in the Federal Register. Atkins placed the proposal after the Innovation Exemption and the August proposal for Regulation Crypto Assets, following the Senate's failure last month to advance the CLARITY Act.
Links:
- SEC — Atkins statement on the crypto-asset custody proposal
- Cointelegraph — SEC moves to clear custody hurdle for advisers offering crypto
Commentary:
Adviser self-custody opens only when no permitted custodian exists; the change that can widen investable token lists sooner is letting state trust companies into the custody set.
2. Circle Asks the EU to Swap Stablecoin Bank-Deposit Floors for Liquidity Rules and Keep Multi-Issuance (Stablecoins)
Summary:
On October 1 Circle published its response to the European Commission's targeted review of the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation. The firm, which says it is the largest MiCA-authorized e-money token issuer and issues both dollar USDC and euro EURC, noted that only USDC, USDG, and EURC among the top 25 stablecoins by market value are MiCA-regulated, while about 30 e-money tokens are authorized in the EU. Current rules require e-money token issuers to hold at least 30 percent of reserves in commercial bank deposits, rising to 60 percent for issuers classified as significant. Circle agreed with the European Central Bank that those mandatory floors should be replaced by a less rigid minimum asset-liquidity requirement, and it asked for removal of two concentration limits in the European Banking Authority's Level 2 standards: a 35 percent cap on exposure to a single sovereign, and a ceiling on deposits with one bank equal to 1.5 percent of that bank's total assets. Circle also asked the Commission to preserve multi-issuance, under which an EU-authorized entity and a foreign-regulated entity co-issue the same stablecoin, and proposed an equivalence and recognition regime for foreign-regulated stablecoins modeled on EMIR, CSDR, MiFIR, and the US GENIUS Act. The consultation closed on September 30.
Links:
- Circle — Response to the European Commission's MiCA Review Consultation
- Cointelegraph — Circle urges EU to revise stablecoin reserve rules in MiCA review
Commentary:
Replacing the 30 to 60 percent bank-deposit floor with liquidity buckets would move USDC's European reserves off bank credit risk and back toward sovereign liquidity, while multi-issuance still waits on the Commission's legislative assessment.
II. Market & Major Assets
3. September Payrolls Rise Only 29,000; Bitcoin Trades Through $87,000 on Friday (Market)
Summary:
The Block reported on October 2 that bitcoin topped $87,000 earlier on Friday and was changing hands near $86,700 at the time of writing, its highest level since September 23, 14.6 percent above the September 15 low of $74,968, and close to its best price since January. Glassnode said sellers partly filled asks around $85,000 and then pulled the rest, with the next cluster near $87,000 and about half as large as the old wall. QCP Capital said bitcoin had broken the $82,500 to $85,700 range of the past week, with resistance at $87,400 and support at $82,500, a level held three times this week. The Bureau of Labor Statistics said Friday that employers added 29,000 jobs in September, below the 84,000 to 93,000 QCP had expected, and the unemployment rate rose to 4.2 percent from 4.1 percent. Decrypt put bitcoin at $86,757, up about 3 percent on the day, and said July and August were revised down by a combined 60,000, leaving July at a loss of 10,000, with average monthly gains over the past year at 45,000. The price remains about 31 percent below the record set a year ago. Sygnum Chief Investment Officer Fabian Dori told The Block that the weak print strengthens the case for no October hike, but that weakness is not automatically bullish.
Links:
- The Block — Bitcoin nears highest level since January as $85,000 sell wall clears
- Decrypt — Uptober off with a bang as Bitcoin surges to $86K
Commentary:
Sell orders above $87,000 are about half the old $85,000 wall, but Dori's split still applies: an orderly slowdown supports the liquidity trade, while a growth scare pulls risk assets down with it.
4. Before the Jobs Print, Bitcoin Dominance Nears 60% and 24-Hour Liquidations Hit About $344 Million (Market)
Summary:
CoinDesk reported at 9:10 UTC on October 2, ahead of the employment report, that bitcoin was up 3.4 percent and trading above $86,000. Ether, XRP, Solana, and BNB also rose, none as much as bitcoin. Among the 100 largest coins, SKY, AAVE, and APT gained 7 to 10 percent. Bitcoin's share of the crypto market was closing in on 60 percent, while USDT's share slipped to about 6.3 percent. The FactSet consensus at that point was for 90,000 jobs added in September and an unemployment rate unchanged at 4.1 percent. In derivatives, bitcoin open interest rose to $22.4 billion from $20.9 billion the day before. Annualized funding reached 9 to 10 percent on Hyperliquid and OKX, and the three-month annualized basis on Deribit held above 6 percent. Coinglass showed $344 million of liquidations over 24 hours, up from $100 million the day before, split 28 percent longs and 72 percent shorts. Bitcoin accounted for about $132 million and ether about $70 million. CoinDesk said that after remarks from New York Fed President John Williams and Vice Chair Philip Jefferson, the market's chance of an October rate increase had fallen from 70 percent to 30 percent.
Links:
Commentary:
Shorts were 72 percent of the liquidations, so the move through $86,000 included short covering, and with funding at 9 to 10 percent the next swing hits leveraged longs first.
III. Institutions & ETFs
5. Spot Bitcoin ETFs Take In $102.7 Million on Thursday; Ether ETFs Log a Third Straight Outflow Day (Institutions)
Summary:
Citing SoSoValue, Cointelegraph reported that US spot bitcoin ETFs drew $102.7 million in net inflows on Thursday, the first trading day of October, after $148.7 million of net outflows on Wednesday. Combined net assets rose to $109.3 billion, and cumulative net inflows reached $57.6 billion. Third-quarter net inflows were $6.34 billion, including $2.65 billion in September. Cointelegraph said bitcoin rose 42.71 percent over the quarter. Spot ether ETFs lost $55.4 million on Thursday and about $118 million across three consecutive trading days. Solana ETFs posted about $6 million of net outflows, a second straight session, while XRP ETFs took in $4 million. The Block reported the same day that September bitcoin ETF inflows of $2.65 billion were the second-largest monthly total since October 2025, down from $3.52 billion in August, and that ether ETFs drew $832.43 million in September versus $1.85 billion in August. Decrypt said the bitcoin funds lost $4.97 billion in the second quarter and $490 million in the first, leaving 2026 net inflows still under $1 billion.
Links:
- Cointelegraph — Bitcoin ETFs kick off Uptober with $103M inflow
- The Block — Spot bitcoin ETFs log $2.65 billion in September inflows
Commentary:
Thursday's $102.7 million clawed back part of Wednesday's redemption, but ether funds have now bled for three sessions, so October's institutional bid so far has returned only to bitcoin.
IV. DeFi & Protocols
6. Aave Says MiCA Duties Should Follow Control of Assets, and That Lending Yield Is Not Issuer Interest (DeFi)
Summary:
Crypto News Flash reported on October 2 that Aave Labs, in its response to the European Commission's MiCA review, argued that obligations should fall on entities that exercise control over users or assets, rather than automatically pulling open-source protocols into the same licensing framework. The consultation closed on September 30, and responses will feed reports required under Articles 140 and 142. Aave said more than $3.5 trillion has moved through the protocol since launch, across more than 15 networks. Its subsidiary Push Virtual Assets Ireland is authorized by the Central Bank of Ireland as a crypto-asset service provider. The firm supports rules for custodial and intermediated lenders, but it opposes extending MiCA's ban on interest tied to how long a holder owns an asset-referenced token or e-money token, including interest granted by crypto-asset service providers, to returns from non-custodial lending. Aave said the European Central Bank has proposed extending that prohibition to lending and staking, while the European Banking Authority has treated stablecoin lending returns as potential regulatory arbitrage. The next public checkpoint is October 27, when Financial Services Commissioner Maria Luís Albuquerque hosts an implementation dialogue on digital finance in Brussels.
Links:
- Crypto News Flash — Aave Challenges EU Push to Extend MiCA Into DeFi Lending
- DeFi Planet — EU's MiCA Review Exposes New Fights Over Stablecoins And DeFi
Commentary:
If the Commission licenses by control, Aave's Irish entity and the protocol itself would be regulated apart; if lending yield counts as interest, euro stablecoins leave on-chain credit first.
7. SMBC Nikko and Four Partners Sign an MoU for a Japan DeFi Gateway Targeted for Mid-2027 (DeFi)
Summary:
crypto.news reported on October 2 that SMBC Nikko Securities and Nethermind signed a memorandum of understanding that day with Uniswap Labs, Base, and the Nyx Foundation to build a DeFi Gateway for Japanese investors, with completion targeted for mid-2027. The plan uses Uniswap v4 hooks so anti-money-laundering, counter-terrorist-financing, and investor-protection checks sit inside custom liquidity pools rather than only on a website. SMBC Nikko will lead talks with regulators and contribute compliance, risk, and portfolio-management expertise. Nethermind leads engineering, artificial intelligence, and smart-contract security. Uniswap Labs provides protocol integration and liquidity-deployment strategy. The Nyx Foundation advises on market-making and hook design. Base supports deployment on its layer-2 and technical feedback on x402, Coinbase's open payment protocol. The parties will also study deployment of stablecoins and real-world assets, and verifiable agentic vaults. Progress will be shared with authorities including Japan's Financial Services Agency. The announcement does not describe an FSA-approved product, a launch date, supported tokens, or a minimum investment. The work extends a research partnership the two lead firms announced on March 6.
Links:
- crypto.news — SMBC Nikko plans Japan DeFi gateway with Uniswap
- TokenPost — SMBC Nikko, Partners Expect DeFi Gateway Development by Mid-2027
Commentary:
This is a development memorandum aimed at mid-2027; once compliance lives in the pool, whether a Japanese broker can let clients make markets still depends on whether the FSA accepts that pool-level control.
8. Ethereum Layer-2 Blast Will Wind Down; the Regular Withdrawal Interface Closes on October 26 (Protocol)
Summary:
The Block reported on October 2 that Paradigm-backed Ethereum layer-2 Blast said on Friday on X that it will shut down because the ongoing cost of running the network exceeds layer-2 revenue and it sees no credible path to economic sustainability. DeFiLlama showed a little over $32 million in total value locked, down from more than $2 billion ahead of the February 2024 mainnet launch. Decrypt said the network once held more than $2.3 billion. Users are asked to move assets, including balances in the progressive web app, back to Ethereum mainnet. Blast will first withdraw assets from Lido, a process expected to take about a week, during which withdrawals are unavailable. After that, the withdrawal delay falls to 24 hours, and users can withdraw through the normal interface until October 26. After that date they must call Blast's bridge contracts on Ethereum directly. The BLAST token fell 17 percent on Friday, cutting its market capitalization to about $23 million. The network went live in November 2023 after a $20 million round led by Paradigm and Standard Crypto, with nearly 200,000 early-access users before mainnet.
Links:
- The Block — Paradigm-backed Layer 2 Blast to wind down network
- Decrypt — Once a $2.3 billion network, Ethereum layer-2 Blast is shutting down
Commentary:
The practical window is not October 26 itself; it opens only after the roughly one-week Lido exit pause ends, and funds still in the official interface by the deadline have to leave before that interface closes.
V. Security
9. Linea Exits Yield Boost Validators as a Precaution; Vault Funds and Control Are Unaffected (Security)
Summary:
CryptoTimes reported on October 2 that Consensys Ethereum layer-2 Linea said on Friday on X that validators supporting its Yield Boost vault and affected by the MetaMask Staking incident are being exited as a precaution. Linea said the vault's funds and control are unaffected, it has not asked users to act, and it has not reported a loss of principal. The impact is a temporary drop in the net staking rewards that fund ecosystem incentives while validators exit and are replaced. The team has not disclosed what share of Yield Boost validators is affected, or when replacements will be in place. Lido's September 30 governance-forum disclosure said the last affected validators are expected to be exited, though not fully withdrawn, by the end of October 7, and that exited ether could take up to about 45 days to re-enter the queue. Lido also noted that MetaMask does not manage withdrawal keys.
Links:
- CryptoTimes — Linea exits Yield Boost validators after MetaMask security incident
- Coinlaw — Linea Exits Validators After MetaMask Security Incident
Commentary:
Vault principal was not touched, but Linea incentives paid from that staking yield thin out first, and the refill depends on how soon replacement validators re-enter after October 7.
10. Velocity, Formerly Drift, Opens DFX Claims; Current Redemptions Return About One Cent per Dollar Lost (Security)
Summary:
The Block reported on October 2 that decentralized exchange Velocity, formerly Drift, has opened claims for users hurt by the April exploit: one DFX token for every USDT lost. Holders can redeem and burn DFX for USDT from the recovery pool, sell it on the secondary market, or hold it for later funding. Redemption burns the token and forfeits future payouts tied to it. On Friday the dashboard showed 216,480 DFX redeemed for roughly 2,250 USDT. The pool holds 3.11 million USDT of protocol assets. Velocity will also sweep 60 to 90 percent of net protocol revenue into the pool; after the first day that sweep was 31 USDT. The dashboard had not yet recorded Tether's commitment of up to $127.5 million or up to $20 million pledged by strategic partners, so as much as $147.5 million of outside support is still outside the pool. The Drift Foundation said on September 30 that about $295.4 million was stolen in the April 1 attack. Mandiant identified the attacker as North Korean threat group UNC6862. Three attacker wallets still hold 107,165 ETH, worth nearly $286 million, and about $9.2 million has been frozen, though moving it into the pool requires a law-enforcement order.
Links:
Commentary:
Redeeming now returns about one percent and burns the claim on anything that arrives later; until Tether's $127.5 million actually hits the pool, early redeemers do not share in it.
Today's Summary
- On October 1 the SEC proposed custody amendments for advisers and funds: conditional self-custody when no permitted custodian exists, with a quarterly reassessment, and a path for state-chartered trust companies. Comments run for 60 days after Federal Register publication.
- Circle asked the EU to replace MiCA's 30 percent bank-deposit floor, 60 percent for significant issuers, with a liquidity requirement, and to keep stablecoin multi-issuance. Aave argued that a license should follow control of assets, and that lending yield is not issuer interest.
- September payrolls rose only 29,000 and unemployment was 4.2 percent. Bitcoin traded through $87,000 on Friday and was near $86,700 in The Block's report. US spot bitcoin ETFs took in $102.7 million on Thursday, while ether ETFs logged a third straight outflow day.
- Blast said it will shut down. The regular withdrawal interface lasts until October 26, after about a week in which withdrawals pause for the Lido exit. Linea is exiting validators as a precaution, and Velocity's DFX redemptions currently cover about 1 percent of losses.
Daily Framing:
Friday was a weak-jobs and narrow-custody day in the crypto cycle: a 29,000 payroll print lifted bitcoin through $87,000, the SEC opened adviser self-custody only when no permitted custodian exists, and Blast said it will shut down because costs exceed revenue.
This digest is compiled from real-time search results and is for reference only.
Date: Oct 2, 2026 (Friday)