Author：Colorful Smoke and Clouds

The following article is adapted from The Block’s newsletter, The Daily, which comes out on weekday afternoons.

Happy Thursday! Bitcoin hovers near $109,000 as whales trim positions and traders pile into puts, signaling renewed caution in a headline-driven market. Still, analysts say structural ETF demand and a dovish Fed could steady prices — setting up a potential year-end rebound if support holds.

In today's newsletter, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse says the U.S. won't return to the hostile Gensler era crypto climate, Paxos mistakenly mints 300 trillion PayPal USD on Ethereum, SEC Chair Paul Atkins says crypto and tokenization are "job one" for the agency, and more.

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Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse says US won't return to hostile crypto climate under Gensler

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said the U.S. won't return to the hostile regulatory era under former Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler, declaring "the ship has sailed" on anti-crypto policy.

• Speaking at DC Fintech Week on Wednesday, Garlinghouse argued that the crypto industry's progress and integration make it impossible to "put the genie back in the bottle," even if there's an eventual change in the White House.
• He also criticized traditional finance as "hypocritical" for denying crypto firms access to Federal Reserve master accounts while demanding equal compliance on AML and KYC.
• Garlinghouse said that crypto firms deserve the same access to financial infrastructure as banks if they meet equivalent regulatory standards.
• Despite gridlock in Congress over competing crypto market structure bills, Garlinghouse said he remains optimistic that bipartisan cooperation will eventually deliver clearer rules for digital assets.
• He highlighted Ripple's $150 million legal battle with the SEC as an example of hard-won regulatory clarity that the entire industry still lacks.
• Ripple also announced its $1 billion acquisition of global treasury management platform GTreasury on Thursday, aiming to expand into the multi-trillion-dollar corporate treasury market and gain access to some of the world's largest enterprise clients.

Paxos mistakenly mints 300 trillion PYUSD on Ethereum, citing tech error

Stablecoin issuer Paxos accidentally minted 300 trillion PayPal USD (PYUSD) on Ethereum, briefly creating tokens theoretically worth 75 times the entire crypto market cap, eight times the U.S. national debt, or nearly three times global GDP.

• The company attributed the error to a technical issue and burned the excess tokens within about 30 minutes, assuring users that no security breach occurred and all customer funds remained safe.
• The minting glitch, traced to a Paxos hot wallet, caused Aave to freeze PYUSD markets temporarily as a precaution and momentarily knocked the token off its $1 peg.
• Paxos said it has fixed the root cause and resumed normal operations, including a separate routine mint of 300 million PYUSD.

Crypto and tokenization are 'job one' for the SEC, Chair Atkins says

Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Paul Atkins declared crypto and tokenization as the agency's "job one" priority, saying it aims to attract innovation back to the U.S. rather than drive it away.

• Atkins joked that he'd like the agency to be the "Securities and Innovation Commission," underscoring a sharp pivot from Gary Gensler's enforcement-heavy era.
• He also promoted an upcoming "innovation exemption" to fast-track onchain products and reduce redundant registration across multiple agencies.
• Despite the ongoing government shutdown limiting staff operations, Atkins said the SEC remains focused on building a forward-looking framework where digital assets can thrive.
• Meanwhile, SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce made the case for financial privacy, also saying tokenization is a "huge focus now."

Kraken buys Small Exchange for $100 million to launch US derivatives trading platform

Kraken acquired CFTC-regulated Small Exchange from IG Group for $100 million to help establish a fully U.S.-based crypto derivatives platform.

• The move gives Kraken a licensed Designated Contract Market, enabling it to offer spot, futures, and margin products under a unified regulated system.
• Co-CEO Arjun Sethi said the acquisition lets Kraken integrate clearing, risk, and matching functions inside one environment that meets global exchange standards.
• The deal follows Kraken's NinjaTrader purchase earlier this year and comes as annual U.S. crypto derivatives volumes surge 136% amid rising institutional demand.

BitMine adds another $417 million worth of ETH to treasury during market dip

BitMine Immersion has added another 104,336 ETH worth around $417 million to its corporate treasury during the latest market dip, according to onchain data from Lookonchain and Arkham.

• Ahead of the transfers via Kraken and BitGo, BitMine's official holdings stood at 3.03 million ETH, worth around $12.2 billion, as of its last update on Oct. 13.
• The firm, chaired by Fundstrat co-founder Tom Lee, currently boasts the largest Ethereum treasury and the second-largest crypto treasury overall, behind Michael Saylor's Strategy.

In the next 24 hours

• Eurozone CPI inflation data are due at 5 a.m. ET on Friday. Est. MoM 0.1%; Core 0.1%. Est. YoY 2.2%; Core 2.3%.
• ApeCoin, deBridge, Wormhole, and ZKsync are set for token unlocks.
• The European Blockchain Convention concludes in Barcelona. ETHRome kicks off in Italy.

Never miss a beat with The Block's daily digest of the most influential events happening across the digital asset ecosystem.