Weekly Top Stories - 10/31/25

In this week's newsletter, Alex Thorn commemorates the Bitcoin white paper's 17th anniversary; Jianing Wu considers recent crypto ETF launches; and Lucas Tcheyan unpacks the payments implications of Western Union’s Solana stablecoin and surging activity on Coinbase’s x402 protocol.

Happy Birthday, Bitcoin: White Paper Turns 17

Bitcoin approaches adulthood as it turns 17. Seventeen years ago today, on October 31, 2008, a pseudonymous developer named Satoshi Nakamoto posted a nine-page white paper titled “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System” to the Cryptography Mailing List. The paper proposed a decentralized digital currency called Bitcoin that could be sent directly between peers without the use of banks or other intermediaries, famously solving the long-elusive “double-spend” problem that had plagued prior attempts at digital cash. Before Bitcoin, projects like David Chaum’s DigiCash, Wei Dai’s b-money, and Nick Szabo’s bit gold each came close to the dream. Still, none achieved the combination of cryptographic trust and distributed consensus that Bitcoin’s proof-of-work introduced.

The text of Satoshi’s Bitcoin white paper scrolls continuously in the elevator lobby at Galaxy’s headquarters in New York City.

Confirmed original recipients of the white paper include Hal Finney, who would later run the first Bitcoin client and receive the first transaction from Satoshi. Other subscribers who received the original paper include Adam Back, whose Hashcash system directly inspired Bitcoin’s own proof-of-work design and would later found Bitcoin company Blockstream, and Wei Dai himself, whose theoretical b-money proposal was cited in the white paper. Satoshi made the proposal in the right place – at the time, that mailing list was considered ground zero for cryptographers and libertarians seeking alternatives to centralized financial control – but it was still a niche community. Satoshi would later mine Bitcoin’s first block on January 3, 2009 , and release version 0.1 of the Bitcoin software on SourceForge on January 9, 2009.

Fast forward 17 years, and Bitcoin’s transformation is staggering. From an obscure open-source project discussed by a few hundred cypherpunks, it has become a globally traded asset held by institutions, nation-states, and tens of millions of individuals. Bitcoin ETFs now trade on major stock exchanges. Asset managers like BlackRock and Fidelity offer exposure to it. Central banks analyze it as a potential reserve asset, while corporations use it as a treasury hedge.

Since 2009, the Bitcoin network has facilitated the transfer of nearly $55 trillion in value in more than 1.2 billion transactions. In 2025, Bitcoin averages more than 730,000 daily active addresses (vs. 833 in 2010) and 55 million addresses with a nonzero balance (vs. 57,800 in 2010). What began as an experiment in “peer-to-peer cash” has evolved into a digital store of value and the cornerstone of a new asset class.

OUR TAKE:

Bitcoin’s 17th birthday is a reminder that technological revolutions rarely announce themselves with fanfare. In 2008, the world was busy with the global financial crisis; the few who read Satoshi’s email mostly could not have imagined that the idea would someday underpin a trillion-dollar asset class and challenge the monetary orthodoxy of nations (some notable exceptions include Hal Finney, who predicted Bitcoin could reach $10 million per coin in a January 11, 2009 email to Satoshi). The genius of Bitcoin was not merely technical; it was also social. By solving the problem of decentralized consensus, it allowed strangers to coordinate around shared rules without centralized enforcement. The idea of trust through code has proven far more durable than any of the early skeptics expected.

Today’s Bitcoin is far from the fringe experiment it began as. Institutionalization has brought liquidity, credibility, and mainstream adoption, but also a cultural shift. The early cypherpunks who mined on laptops and debated the philosophy of digital freedom in obscure forums were animated by ideals of privacy, autonomy, and resistance to censorship. Today’s Bitcoiners also include hedge funds, asset managers, and corporate treasurers whose motivations are primarily financial. In one sense, that’s a triumph: Bitcoin achieved market legitimacy without compromising its decentralized architecture. But it also raises questions about whether the original ethos, which was so clearly rooted in the cypherpunk rebellion against control, is being diluted by the very institutions it once sought to transcend.

This existential debate has always existed and constantly rages on, not just on the internet (now in places like X and nostr) but also in the halls of executive and legislative branches, who are increasingly grappling with how to reconcile the decentralized nature of public blockchains and their immutable code with the centralized payment rails and surveillance systems that characterize the traditional financial system. And Bitcoiners themselves continue to debate whether the protocol itself is living up to the project’s ideals and in which ways it should evolve in the future. A famous multi-year internecine dispute known as the Blocksize Wars culminated in 2017 and set the protocol’s direction and community’s attitude to scaling for years to come, and I referred to a new clash between Bitcoin factions just this week as a “new Bitcoin civil war” on this week’s episode of Galaxy Grid podcast.

Still, the fact that these tensions even exist speaks to Bitcoin’s success. No other open-source project has attracted both anarchists and asset managers, libertarians and lawmakers, miners in basements and sovereign wealth funds. Bitcoin’s neutrality is its power: it doesn’t care who uses it or why, only that the rules are followed. Sometimes Bitcoiners debate changing those rules, but none of the system’s most sacrosanct features have ever been altered. Every four years, its new supply issuance keeps halving; every ten minutes, a new block is mined; there will never be more than 21 million bitcoin.

Seventeen years on, Bitcoin has become a paradox: both a symbol of resistance and a pillar of the financial system it once sought to disrupt. It’s held in cold storage self-custody by millions, including human rights activists, and its original cypherpunk features still shine, but it’s also traded by the world’s largest investors as a macro asset. Whether the next 17 years see Bitcoin ossify into “digital gold” or focus more on its cypherpunk roots will depend less on the code itself than on the community that carries it forward. Whatever happens, it’s hard to argue with the scale and impact of the transformation. From an email to a mailing list in 2008 to a global phenomenon in 2025, Bitcoin’s journey is still the best evidence yet that ideas, like code, can change the world. – Alex Thorn

The Altcoin ETF Horde Is Coming

On Oct. 28, three new crypto spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) began trading in the U.S. markets, none of them tied to bitcoin or ether. Canary launched two ETFs, one for the Hedera blockchain’s HBAR token (HBR) and the other for one of the oldest altcoin networks, Litecoin (LTCC). Bitwise’s spot Solana staking ETF (BSOL), however, took the spotlight.

Earlier in the month, Grayscale added staking features to its two Ethereum spot exchange-traded products (ETPs), and on Oct. 29, its Grayscale Solana Trust (GSOL) was uplisted with a staking feature. With these launches, there are now 115 crypto ETFs in the U.S., of which more than 25 offer single-asset crypto spot exposure.

Anticipating the government shutdown, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had issued guidance beforehand that allows issuers to remove the “delaying amendment” from their registration statements. This change allows filings to automatically go effective after a 20-day waiting period, which makes it possible for these ETFs to begin trading during the shutdown.

On its first trading day, Bitwise’s BSOL saw $69.5 million in net inflows, while Canary’s two altcoin ETFs saw none. On the second day, BSOL attracted another $46.5 million, compared with $2.2 million for HBR and $0.5 million for LTCC. As of the close on Thursday, BSOL recorded $37 million in net inflows, HBR unexpectedly added $30 million, and LTCC remained flat at $0. Through the first three days, BSOL has taken in ~$150m of inflows, making it the top ETF launch of 2025.

OUR TAKE:

The latest wave of crypto ETF launches tells a bigger story about timing, regulation, and competition in the digital asset industry. These are among the first spot crypto ETPs to debut following the SEC’s approval of generic listing standards in September, and they did so during a government shutdown. The launches reflect a direct benefit of the new listing framework, which enables national exchanges to list qualifying spot crypto and commodity-based ETPs under standardized criteria, streamlining the path to market for eligible assets. Issuers also leveraged the SEC’s procedural guidance that allows registration statements to go effective automatically after a 20-day waiting period, provided the delaying amendment is removed.

While Bloomberg analyst James Seyffart noted that it remains unclear whether this procedural shortcut formally applies to crypto ETF filings, what stands out is how quickly issuers moved to secure a first-mover advantage. In an increasingly fee-compressed market, timing is critical, and several issuers leveraged this automatic-effectiveness mechanism to bring products to market through an unconventional route, underscoring how fiercely competitive the landscape has become.

The long-awaited launch of the first spot Solana ETF with staking was a milestone for the U.S. market. In its first two days, Bitwise’s BSOL attracted $116 million in inflows, roughly 0.1% of Solana’s $106 billion market cap. For comparison, the nine Ethereum spot ETFs that launched on July 23, 2024, recorded two-day outflows of $26.4 million out of the gate, largely due to Grayscale redemptions. Flows remained muted for several months before picking up meaningfully around the November election. The 10 Bitcoin spot ETFs, by contrast, drew $858 million over their first two days, also about 0.1% of Bitcoin’s $837 billion market cap at that time. What makes BSOL’s debut particularly notable is that its early inflows are especially strong given the far smaller number of available products. It is one of only two spot Solana ETFs, compared with nine for Ethereum and 10 for Bitcoin. As Bloomberg’s Eric Balchunas noted, BSOL also recorded the highest trading volume of any ETF debut this year, with a volume of roughly $56 million on the first day.

In contrast, the two altcoin ETFs, HBR and LTCC, showed little activity, with zero flows on day one and $2.2 million and $0.5 million, respectively, on day two. This highlights how demand tends to taper as one moves further out on the risk curve. Altcoins remain less familiar to traditional investors, and educating them about these protocols takes time. Their weaker long-term narratives compared with Bitcoin, Ethereum, or Solana also help explain the muted interest, as these networks play narrower roles within the broader crypto ecosystem.

Price action for all three coins was also limited following these ETF debuts. Litecoin (LTC) rose 3% the day after its ETF began trading, HBAR gained 2.6%, and Solana’s SOL climbed just 1.6%, suggesting that much of the bullish repricing likely occurred ahead of the ETF launches.

In the coming months, more ETFs are expected to target assets that meet the new generic listing standards. Beyond Solana, Hedera, and Litecoin, potential candidates could include DOGE, BCH, LINK, XLM, AVAX, SHIB, and DOT.

Finally, one notable detail stands out about BSOL. The fund aims to stake up to 100% of its assets, which are currently around 90% staked. Most issuers limit staking exposure to 50%-80% to ensure liquidity, because unstaking SOL takes roughly two days. To mitigate redemption risk, Bitwise partners with a third party that swaps pending unstaked SOL for unencumbered SOL. This arrangement maintains liquidity for the fund while capturing yield. In a market where every basis point counts, this innovation could pressure other issuers to follow suit. – Jianing Wu

The Shift to Programmable Money: Stables and x402 Reshape Payments

This week underscored just how quickly the boundary between traditional payments and crypto infrastructure is blurring. Western Union announced it will launch a new stablecoin called U.S. Dollar Payment Token (USDPT), bringing digital dollars to the world’s largest money transfer network. At nearly the same time, buzz around the x402 protocol — a blockchain-native framework for agentic, programmable payments — hit a fever pitch, sending related tokens surging as speculators rushed to capitalize on the hype.

Western Union’s new stablecoin will launch on Solana with issuance and custody handled by Anchorage Digital. The stablecoin will be incorporated into Western Union’s “Digital Asset Network,” which will act as an on-ramp/off-ramp blockchain infrastructure that links crypto networks to Western Union’s network of agents and retail locations. The company intends to launch USDPT in the first half of 2026, opening the door for stablecoin adoption by its 100 million customers in 400,000+ retail locations around the world. This is not Western Union’s first foray into the blockchain world. In 2015, the company explored using Ripple’s infrastructure for cross-border payments, but the initiative failed to gain traction.

Western Union was not the only traditional payments provider to announce stablecoin integrations this week. During its quarterly earnings call, Visa’s CEO said it will add support for “four stablecoins running on four unique blockchains…that we can accept and convert to over 25 traditional fiat currencies.” Meanwhile, citing unnamed sources, Fortune reported that Mastercard is in talks to acquire stablecoin infrastructure provider Zerohash for $1.5 billion to $2 billion, although the deal has yet to be confirmed.

As traditional payment providers continued their foray into the stablecoin world, crypto payments got their own boost with excitement over x402 picking up again. Coinbase introduced x402 in September as a permissionless payments protocol using the web’s HTTPs and intended to power a comprehensive payments ecosystem for AI agents (for a full overview on x402, read Galaxy Digital’s prior research). Despite the initial buzz, however, x402 activity remained relatively subdued until a surge in new x402-related token launches kicked off this past week (when a project demonstrated the ability to mint tokens using x402). Cumulative transactions soared from less than 200,000 before Oct. 20 to over 2 million as of Thursday, with cumulative volume reaching nearly $3 million and x402 aggregate token market cap exceeding $1 billion. Activity has since died down, as is often the case in crypto’s highly hype-driven and rapidly rotational markets. But the initial spurt of activity has already attracted a large cohort of users and developers who will likely build on the initial interest to create more fully fledged products.

OUR TAKE:

This is the year that programmable money definitively shifts from crypto experimentation to real-world deployment. Western Union’s launch of USDPT reinforces the opportunities and the competitive pressures facing legacy payment providers as stablecoins become an increasingly common settlement layer. It’s why nearly every major network—Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, PayPal —is either in the process of deploying or has already launched a stablecoin offering.

By integrating stablecoins directly into its platform, Western Union is trying to preserve its position in markets where stablecoins outperform fiat rails. Stablecoins offer practical advantages such as faster settlement, lower cross-border fees, and seamless global interoperability. They also present an opportunity to grow Western Union’s business lines, enabling more customers to swap in and out of stablecoins to local currencies or use Western Union services for peer-to-peer transfers. That the company chose to launch first on Solana, business incentives aside, underscores a broader trend: there is now a growing universe of high-performance, permissionless blockchains capable of handling enterprise-scale payments.

Following the announcement, Western Union’s CEO remarked that the company sees stablecoins “as an opportunity, not a threat.” And in some respects, that’s true. Stablecoins give incumbents new tools to upgrade and improve their core business while maintaining their competitive moat, distribution. But there must be real angst in the TradFi c-suites over the implications of a rapidly shifting technological landscape where AI and crypto seem poised to disrupt. That’s where x402 becomes particularly interesting. It isn’t just another payment protocol—it’s a purpose-built infrastructure layer for agentic payments that allows AI agents and smart contracts to move money autonomously.

As with all new technologies, while the underlying proof of concept works, adoption at scale still requires a massive lift. The ecosystem needs client-side integrations that make x402 a snap for end users, vendor adoption by non-crypto businesses, and facilitators capable of handling authorization and verification at scale. Stablecoins at scale are also a necessary precondition, forming the settlement rails that make instant agentic payments possible. Building all this will demand extensive tooling and middleware—wallets, APIs, SDKs, and compliance layers—that make x402 accessible to developers and enterprises alike (for a full overview of x402’s current limitations, I recommend reading this piece).

There are also challenges on the agentic side. Agent intelligence still needs to mature before users get comfortable delegating real financial autonomy—letting AI agents proactively buy, sell, or manage funds on their behalf. And even if that happens, businesses will have to refactor their economics. Micropayments are often cited as x402’s killer use case—allowing users to pay a few cents for a single article or data query instead of subscribing for a year. But are businesses ready for that shift? Will they trade predictable subscriptions for frictionless, one-off payments?

All of these point to a sea change in the payments space. We’re watching in real time as incumbents innovate or risk irrelevance, while new entrants build from the ground up. The rails for programmable money are coming online. The only question now is who will control them. – Lucas Tcheyan

Chart of the Week

This month, Circle’s USDC, the perennial No. 2 stablecoin by market cap, recorded its first lead over Tether’s USDT in transaction volumes. The change has emerged alongside a mix of factors, including fintech integrations at Circle, stronger onchain activity in USDC, and the issuer's emphasis on efficiency and composability.

Perpetual decentralized exchanges like Hyperliquid have been grabbing headlines, but in the background, stablecoins and their issuers are the quiet story gaining momentum. USDT has long dominated the sector, serving as the preferred peer-to-peer transfer method in many emerging markets. Because Tether is offshore and USDT is not compliant with the European Union’s Markets in Crypto Assets regulations, the door has opened for USDC. While USDT still dominates in emerging markets and remains the leading trading pair on crypto exchanges, analysts at JPMorgan note that USDC’s regulated model is emerging as a likely global standard for future stablecoin development, putting real pressure on Tether’s longstanding lead.

USDC’s supply rose 129% to about $74 billion as of Oct. 30, and stablecoin-related revenue climbed 63% to an estimated $403 million in the third quarter. That growth helped make USDC Coinbase’s second-largest revenue contributor after trading by mid-2025. USDC’s onchain velocity also increased, driven by activity on Solana and Base and by integrations with Visa, Mastercard, and Stripe. Partnerships with e-commerce and Web3 platforms, including the World Chain integration, together with Circle’s Cross Chain Transfer Protocol, have further improved USDC’s efficiency for payments and settlements.

There are two additional paths that will have the potential to accelerate the adoption of USDC in developed markets, one that has recently gained some traction and another that is the ultimate pie in the sky for crypto. Online retail player Shopify recently announced integrations with Coinbase and Stripe. This integration will allow consumers and merchants to transact in stablecoins to buy goods and services offered on Shopify. In addition, Solana Pay was recently integrated with Shopify. This lets merchants accept stablecoin payments via Solana Pay, removing intermediaries, bank fees, chargebacks, and holding times, while enabling immediate, direct settlement in U.S. dollar stablecoins on Solana. Lastly, as discussed above, Coinbase’s x402 is gaining traction. If fintechs keep adopting it, USDC usage as a settlement asset could climb.

As for the pie in the sky: If tokenized stocks take hold or banks adopt stablecoins for interbank transfers, USDC is the most likely settlement asset given Circle's compliance and partnerships.

Follow the flows. Stablecoins are becoming infrastructure. — Christopher Rosa

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