Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. And check out our daily news show ‘FOMO HOUR’ covering all of the top stories and market action.
GM!
Today’s top news:
- Crypto majors rally 3-4% as oil and bonds cool; BTC at $86,400
- SEC proposes rules letting advisors and funds hold crypto directly
- ETH Foundation launches zkAPI for private AI
- Pump leads onchain protocols again with $2.6M
- The 7-Trait CryptoPunk sells for $5.9M in landmark sale on Gondi
BitcoinBTC · USD
$85,154+1.69%
Sep 25Sep 27Sep 29Sep 30Oct 2
$86.8k$85.4k$84.0k$82.7k
24h HighHigh$87,086
24h LowLow$84,068
VolVol$1.9B
Market projectionsOdds by Myriad
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🔓 NEAR Intents Hacked for $3.8M—Was It A Bullish Hack?
NEAR Intents shut down briefly on Thursday after an attacker took about $3.8 million.
The flaw sat in the layer that moves money in and out, and how it talked to the main contract holding user funds. ZachXBT traced the stolen money to KuCoin, where it was converted to bitcoin. The team reported it to law enforcement and says a full report is coming.
If you aren’t familiar with Near Intents, the tool lets you swap crypto across different blockchains with the ability to do so privately. It has been a big winner in the privacy boom, handling more than $30 billion in swaps across 35 networks.
As for the hack, the response was fast. The contract-side hole is patched and core services came back within about an hour. Deposits and withdrawals on 11 networks including BNB Chain, Polygon, and Optimism stayed down another 12 hours while the rest of the fix went in. And every affected user will get paid back in full.
NEAR fell nearly 9% to $4.86, and shares of the Bitwise NEAR ETF dropped more than 7%. That fund launched two days earlier, so its first week included a hack of the exact product Bitwise cited as proof the network was growing.
But on the spectrum of how hacks can go, this is as close to the best version of a bad event. Kelp DAO was exploited for hundreds of millions. Bitget lost $387.5 million and froze withdrawals for four days. MetaMask pulled validators offline and has said almost nothing since. NEAR Intents found the bug, stopped the service, patched it, restarted in an hour, named the problem publicly, called law enforcement, and committed to making users whole. It was a rapid response with a very contained hack with minimal damage.
That’s about as good as it gets. Some are going as far as calling it a “bullish hack” along the lines of the ZCash exploit found by their own team. Will this end up being a bullish event for Near? We will find out soon enough.
🌎 Macro Crypto and Markets
- Crypto majors are green up 2-4%; BTC +3% at $86.4k; ETH +2% at $2,740; SOL +3% at $122; HYPE +1% at $91; ZEC -1% at $1,380
- Top alt movers include SKY (+17%), AAVE (+11%), ZRO (+12%) and VVV (+8%)
- Oil -4% at $89; Gold +0.3% at $4,220
- Stock futures are green as oil and bonds fall; DOW +0.6%, Nasdaq +0.7%
- The SEC proposed rules letting investment advisers and funds hold crypto directly, including holding the keys themselves when no custodian is available; the 760-page plan also lets state trust companies act as custodians, and checks in quarterly on whether a custodian has become available.
- Illinois agreed to delay its crypto tax by six months while a court fight continues
- Trump is hosting a third dinner for his memecoin’s biggest holders on November 22 at his Virginia golf club; the top 185 get in, the top 29 get a reception, and the top four get an 18-karat gold watch
- Evernorth’s shareholders approved its Nasdaq listing, making it the largest public company built purely around XRP; it closes October 7 and starts trading as XRPN on October 8 with about 473 million XRP, worth roughly $705 million
- USDT is coming back to Bitcoin this month through Utexo, a Tether-backed company with a license to issue it there; it uses a system called RGB that lets users hold dollars and bitcoin in one wallet, with Lightning support planned next
- Fiserv’s digital asset platform went live Thursday, starting with Roughrider Coin from the state-owned Bank of North Dakota
Corporate Treasuries & ETFs
- The Bitcoin ETFs saw $103M in net inflows on Thursday; the ETH ETFs saw $55M in outflows and Solana had $1.1M in outflows
Meme Coin Tracker
- Meme leaders were green up 2-5%; DOGE +2%, SHIB +2%, PEPE +2%, PENGU +2%, TRUMP +4%, SPX +2%, BONK +4%
- Robinhood chain leaders were mixed; Pons -2% to $360M; AI -2% at $154M; Cashcat +3% at $174M; Genie +500%, Shroom +24% and Moo +80% led top movers
- Solana top movers were led by www +135x, Hooked +180%, Cards +26% and Sapling +170x
💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker
🚚 What is happening in NFTs?
- NFT leaders were mixed; Punks even at 33 ETH, BAYC -1% at 6.18 ETH, Pudgy -7% at 3 ETH
- Quotrons (+6%) and OTC Desks (+14%) led top movers
- The only 7-Trait CryptoPunk sold for ~$5.9M on Gondi, though the full sale details were not disclosed overnight
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