Hodler’s Digest, October 27 – November 2 – Cointelegraph Magazine

The main news of the week

Michael Saylor posted a false quote from Trump on crypto to 3.6M followers

As Election Day approaches in the United States and many voters have already gone to the polls, social media is flooded with misinformation about the candidates' policies. MicroStrategy Executive Chairman Michael Saylor appears to have fallen foul of Donald Trump's misinformed social media post about his position on crypto taxation.

In an Oct. 30 post to his more than 3.6 million followers on X, Saylor referenced a quote he made to Trump in which he said crypto shouldn't be paid and “Bitcoin is money.”

An investigation by Cointelegraph found that the fake quote originated from the account of BasedCarbonX, which in an Oct. 28 post said the Republican candidate made the comments in a “recent interview.”

Kraken has reorganized with a new colleague, the dismissal is reported

Cryptocurrency exchange Kraken has announced a “new day” with the appointment of a new colleague, Arjun Sethi, and a management shakeup. There are also unconfirmed reports that about 15% of the workers have been laid off.

Sethi is the co-founder and chairman of Silicon Valley venture capital investor Tribe Capital and will be a member of Kraken's board starting in 2021, sharing Kraken's top position with David Ripley.

In addition to announcing Seth's appointment, Kraken announced the upcoming changes on its blog on October 30. “We need to be simpler and faster,” he insists. Clearly, Kraken's organizational structure is due for reform. According to the blog:

“We have fallen into the trap of building organizational layers. We benchmark managers against the successes or failures of the teams they oversee, and predict success based on hidden P&Ls. [profits and losses]. […] So ‘managers' are encouraged to do the wrong thing.

Former FTX exec sentenced after guilty plea

A federal judge sentenced Nishad Singh, a former FTX engineering director, to time served and three years of probation for misappropriating user funds and committing campaign finance violations.

On Oct. 30 in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, Judge Lewis Kaplan sentenced Singh, 29, to time served. Former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison and former FTX Digital Markets co-CEO Ryan Salame were the fourth individuals to stand trial in the FTX executives' lawsuit.

According to reports from the courtroom by Inner City Press, Singh's attorneys alleged that “much” of the fraud at FTX was the result of Bankman-Fried and Ellison's actions. Singh says he is “overwhelmed with regret” for his role in the FTX saga.

Trump's victory may give crypto a ‘dopamine hit', but traders should be careful

Many crypto industry experts have predicted that Donald Trump's victory in the US presidential election on November 5 could trigger a major crypto market rally.

Still, some analysts warn that crypto investors should be careful in the days and weeks surrounding the election, because other factors may be at play.

Pav Hundal, lead analyst at Swyftx, told Cointelegraph that Trump's victory could be a dopamine hit, warning that markets will be more volatile in the days surrounding the election.

According to Nick Forster, founder of Derive, “traders should approach with caution” because the market is currently pricing in high volatility. “There may be a better situation, but the risks are the same,” he warned.

Referring to the derivative options data, Forster traders are preparing for high price movements around the election day.

OpenAI will start exploring ChatGPT, the ‘big theme' of 2025

OpenAI has introduced a new feature for its artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT, which enhances its ability to search the web and answer questions.

On October 31, the company announced the “ChatGPT Search” feature, allowing users to search the web based on their queries. Users can choose to manually search by clicking the web search icon.

While ChatGPT previously had limited web access, the new update claims to provide more relevant answers than traditional search engines.

“You can get fast, up-to-date answers with links to relevant web resources, which you previously needed to go to a search engine.”

Winners and losers

At the end of the week, Bitcoin (BTC) at $69,332, Ether (ETH) at $2,510 and XRP at $0.51. According to CoinMarketCap, the total market cap is $2.32 trillion.

Among the largest 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin gainers for the week were Raydium (RAY) at 21%, Dogecoin (DOGE) at 15.92% and Maker (MKR) at 15.05%.

The top three altcoin losers of the week were Immutable (IMX) at 21.19%, Celestia (TIA) at 19.87% and Arweave (AR) at 17.49%. Be sure to read Cointelegraph's market analysis for more information on crypto prices.

The most memorable quotes

“If bitcoin crashes after the election, the value of MicroStrategy (MSRL) could drop two to three times significantly, given the beta for bitcoin.”

Timothy Peterson, independent network economist

“all in all [cryptocurrency regulation] It's actually going in a very positive direction… In June, Donald Trump is pro-crypto. By the end of June, both parties are pro-crypto. Am I still sitting in jail, like hell?”

Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, co-founder and former CEO of Binance

“Barring some kind of external shock, we're looking at six-figure bitcoin prices before the end of the year. Regardless of who controls the White House.

Pav Hundal, lead market analyst at Swyftx

“Anything Vitalik says in that vein gets cheers from me and the company, but there's no additional pressure on us from anyone other than Vitalik or Consensus.”

Joe Lubin, CEO of Consensys

“Markets don't care about our analysis and position. Get in line and take the one that makes you a sign.

Axel Kibar, businessman and former fund manager

“The global financial system is closed, outdated and inefficient. While this industry is vital to America, it operates at the speed of the post office, while the rest of the economy has successfully used technology and the Internet to innovate.

Paxos CEO Charles Cascarla

Top forecast of the week

Bitcoin Technical Indicator Predicts BTC Cycle Top in $174K–$462K Range

After gaining 8.75% in 24 hours, Bitcoin recorded a three-day candle high closing at $72,724 on October 29. Based on this key indicator, with BTC moving above the resistance above $71,500, investors could see a return on investment (ROI) in the range of 145%-530% over the next 12 months.

Bitcoin is close to breaking out of a seven-month price consolidation range, and the market is anticipating a period of price discovery after BTC hit new all-time highs (ATHs).

As new studies and data serve different predictions in the last few weeks, Bitcoin has already followed the levels listed between the Fibonacci retracement levels between 1.618 and 2.272, each of BTC's highs.

FUD of the week

The judge postponed the Tornado Cash co-founder's trial until April 2025.

Tornado Cash founder and developer Roman Storm will not stand trial on money laundering and embargo violations until April 2025.

In a November 1 teleconference for the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, Judge Kathryn Polk Faila ordered Storm's trial postponed until April 14, 2025. Stating that they are solely dependent on it for cryptocurrency mixing services.

In the year In 2023, prosecutors charged Storm and Tornado founder Roman Semenov with money laundering, conspiracy to commit sanctions violations, and conspiracy to conduct an unauthorized money transfer business. The allegations have outraged many in the crypto industry.

M2 crypto exchange has been hacked for $13M and user funds have already been restored

Cryptocurrency hackers have stolen more than $13 million in a new cyber attack on a crypto exchange.

Centralized cryptocurrency exchange M2 was hacked with $13.7 million worth of digital assets, the exchange shared in an October 31 announcement:

“We would like to inform you that the situation has been fully resolved and customers' funds have been refunded. M2 has taken full responsibility for any losses, demonstrating our unwavering commitment to protecting our customers' interests. All services are now fully operational with additional controls in place.”

Hackers were able to steal $13.7 million in Bitcoin, Ether and SOL from the exchange's hot wallets, wrote pseudo-onchain investigator ZackXBT in a November 1 Telegram post.

Amid market volatility, the terror seller lost $222K in AAVE.

A millionaire crypto investor with a large Ave holding “sold the dip” at around $222,000 – a common case of panic selling in uncertain market conditions.

In mid-October, a crypto wallet associated with the seller withdrew 20,527 Aave from crypto exchange Binance, worth $3.19 million. At the time, AAVE's market price was $155.

Over the next two weeks, AAVE and many other cryptocurrencies struggled to gain momentum.

While an investor may choose a hodle strategy, hoping for a price rise in the near future, the AAVE investor decided to sell his holdings when the market was falling, according to Onchain Analytics platform Lookonchain.

The seller sold the entire 20,527 AAVE shares at the market price of $144 “in a panic to stop the loss,” Lookonchain said.

The best magazine stories of the week

We took ETHSafari to see how crypto works in Africa.

African founders and projects are often excluded from global Web3 events, so ETSafari brings the crypto world to them.

Off The Grid is plagued by cheaters: Web3 Gamer

Off The Grid players are being rewarded for reporting cheating software like Amiibots, WallHack and God Mode.

‘Hong Kong FTX' victims win lawsuit, bankers stabilize coin: Asia Express

Gemini continues its APAC expansion, first JPEX victims win recovery case, central banks bash stablecoins and more.

Editorial staff

Cointelegraph magazine writers and reporters contributed to this article.