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According to a report by Decrypt, a national survey commissioned by the cryptocurrency policy advocacy organization DeFi Education Fund and conducted by Ipsos shows that 22% of American adults have held or used cryptocurrency, up from 18% in 2025, but the usage rate over the past 12 months remains flat at 13%. The survey, conducted from September 8 to 16, interviewed 1,545 adults, with a margin of error of ±2.8 percentage points. The growth almost entirely comes from users who have dropped out: among those who have not used cryptocurrency in the past year, the proportion who had held or used it rose from 5% to 11%; the willingness to purchase in the future also remains flat, with 17% indicating they might hold or use it in the future, compared to 16% last year.In terms of user demographics, the usage rate for men in the past year was 18%, while for women it was 8%, with the former being more than double the latter. Adults under 60 showed a significantly higher usage rate than older individuals. The primary reason for trying cryptocurrency is curiosity (34%), followed by long-term investment (25%). Respondents expressed significant unease about the traditional financial system: only 19% believe it is safe, and 63% think it needs to be upgraded to address cybercrime and AI threats; 60% are concerned about data breaches at large financial institutions, and 54% doubt their ability to withstand AI-driven threats, while 74% indicate that financial privacy is important.This skepticism has not translated into trust in cryptocurrency. Only 4% have high trust in cryptocurrency exchanges, and 5% have high trust in decentralized platforms, while large national banks and credit unions have trust levels of 42% and 48%, respectively. The knowledge gap is also significant: only 2% of Americans are very familiar with DeFi, 6% can identify all four characteristics of cryptocurrency listed in the survey, and 35% are completely uncertain about how to describe cryptocurrency. However, 40% indicate that if DeFi were available, there is at least some possibility they would try it, with over 80% stating they would use it to save money, earn interest, or send money to friends and family; the desire to understand stablecoins and DeFi decreased from 11% to 7% and 8%, respectively.

The DeFi lending protocol Kamino announced the launch of a USDC loan service using Backpack tokenized stocks as collateral. Borrowers can receive up to 40% of the collateral's value.The market will maintain its last stock price outside of U.S. trading hours, which means that during U.S. stock market closures, the collateral valuation of the tokenized stocks will be based on their last transaction price, allowing borrowers to continue lending operations during non-trading hours.

Due to an increase in imports, the U.S. goods trade deficit widened by 2.1% in September to $134.9 billion, exceeding economists' forecast of $130.2 billion. Last month's goods imports rose by $8.1 billion to $344.1 billion, while goods exports increased by $5.3 billion to $209.2 billion.The AI investment boom has driven imports, and trade has not contributed to GDP growth for three consecutive quarters. Economists predict a year-on-year GDP growth rate of 3.2% for the third quarter.

Ethena Pay has begun rolling out the Earn+ feature, which claims that the dollar balance can earn a target annual reward of up to 12%. Initially, it is open to Pro and VIP users, with plans to expand to all users in the coming days. This feature will transfer funds from the main payment balance to an external Upshift vault, where Steakhouse Financial will execute a leveraged USDe strategy on Aave, aiming for a yield higher than the app's existing maximum tiered reward of 6%.According to documents released by Ethena Pay, the vault targets approximately 11 times leverage on Aave v4 on Avalanche, packaging repeated borrowing and reinvestment into a one-click deposit. The specific path involves depositing USDe as collateral, borrowing USDT, and then using the borrowed tokens to purchase more USDe in a loop, with returns depending on whether the USDe rewards can cover the USDT borrowing costs. Ethena Pay states that it only provides the interface and does not guarantee the assets, and users must bear the risk of vault losses, which may result in losing part or all of their invested funds.Ethena Pay claims that the simplified interface does not eliminate liquidation risk; when collateral is insufficient to cover debts, positions will face liquidation, with liquidators repaying debts and taking collateral and rewards. The 12% is only a target and not a guaranteed return, rates may be adjusted downwards, and Earn+ balances do not enjoy the Daily Boost of the main account. This product has no lock-up period, no fees for deposits or withdrawals, and withdrawals are processed to the main dollar account within 24 hours but may be delayed, and are not considered insured bank deposits. The initial total capacity limit for the vault is $4.5 million, with individual limits of $50,000 and $200,000 for Pro and VIP users, respectively, and $20,000 for Standard users.

NEAR ecosystem announces the launch of the Confidential Jio pre-IPO trading contract, allowing users to participate in the trading of related assets before Jio officially goes public.The contract offers up to 5 times leverage, providing investors with a more flexible risk management tool. According to official statements, this product is expected to transform into an equity perpetual contract after Jio completes its IPO, thereby extending its trading lifecycle.It is important to note that this contract currently does not involve the delivery of actual shares, nor does it provide IPO allocation quotas; its core positioning is focused on price discovery and risk hedging around pre-listing assets.

According to The Defiant, Robinhood announced that its Earn feature is now available to all eligible users, allowing users to participate in on-chain USDG lending. The funds deposited by users will go into the Morpho vault curated by Steakhouse on the Robinhood Chain.The rewards earned will be used to supplement lending interest, and withdrawals will depend on the liquidity status of the vault. This feature is available to all eligible users, who can earn income through on-chain lending.

Bitcoin fell below $80,000 on Tuesday, down about 0.4% since midnight UTC, briefly dropping to around $79,700. Ethereum decreased by 0.5%, and the DeFi index dropped by 1.8%, making it the largest decline among the indices tracked by CoinDesk.Meanwhile, the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) rose by 3.1%, and Asian tech stocks strengthened, but the crypto market failed to follow the rebound. On the macro front, the Federal Reserve will begin a two-day meeting on interest rates on Tuesday and announce its rate decision on Wednesday. CME FedWatch data shows that the market expects about a 90% probability that the Federal Reserve will keep interest rates unchanged, and traders will be watching for any potential rate hikes later in the year.In the options market, the $72,000 put option expiring on December 25 was the most traded Bitcoin option in the past 24 hours, and the 25 Delta put/call skew for Bitcoin across all maturities is positive, indicating that there is still demand for downside protection in the market.

According to Eleanor Terrett, a joint survey by the DeFi Education Fund and Ipsos shows that 35% of American respondents believe political candidates should support the development of the next generation of financial technology. However, when the question specifically pointed to blockchain, cryptocurrency, and DeFi, this percentage dropped to 13%.The survey also revealed that 74% of respondents believe the financial system needs reform so that individuals can have more control over their assets. Meanwhile, only 9% of respondents reported being very or extremely familiar with cryptocurrency, and just 5% have high trust in decentralized platforms.Among those who are intentionally trying DeFi, the leading uses are for savings and domestic transfers within the United States, rather than speculation. Cryptocurrency ownership has increased by 4 percentage points, while usage over the past year has remained steady at 13%.

Mexican cryptocurrency exchange Bitso announced the launch of a product called Bóvedas, which brings the lending functionality of the decentralized lending protocol Morpho into its app.This product allows users to deposit USDC and the stablecoin MXNB, which is pegged to the Mexican peso, into non-custodial lending vaults, enabling users to earn floating returns, while the product does not provide deposit insurance.

According to market news, DeFi Development Corp has increased its holdings by 5,346 SOL, currently holding 2.595 million SOL, making it the second largest SOL treasury company in the world.

According to Chainlink's official blog, Chainlink has officially launched the CustodySync solution, allowing qualified custodians to enable their institutional clients to participate in the DeFi lending market under the premise of asset retention custody. Anchorage Digital, a federally chartered digital asset bank in the United States, is the official launch partner.This solution publishes custody balances on-chain through Chainlink Proof of Reserve and issues tokenized certificates representing custody assets with transfer restrictions as collateral in the lending market; the custodian and the lending protocol calculate the Loan-to-Value (LTV) based on the same price data from Chainlink Data Feeds and Data Streams, with the designated collateral agent executing sales when liquidation is triggered. Chainlink states that the current scale of digital asset custody is approximately $700 billion, with deposits in the DeFi lending market exceeding $80 billion and active loans over $30 billion.

According to DefiLlama data, as of October 21, 2026, the DeFi sector has recorded 43 price manipulation attacks, surpassing the previous annual record of 27 in 2022.The total related losses amount to approximately $199 million, lower than the loss scale of some years, with the Tectonic case alone accounting for about $124.5 million. Among the remaining 42 cases, 32 had individual losses of less than $1 million.

The decentralized perpetual contract protocol Lighter announced the inclusion of weETH as collateral for perpetual contract trading on the platform. The platform calculates the trading margin based on 70% of the weETH index value, which sets a 30% discount on the collateral asset.At the same time, Lighter has set the maximum supply limit of weETH collateral across the platform to 1000 units. After the adjustment, users can use weETH as margin to open perpetual contract positions on Lighter.

The UK's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has launched two parallel consultations aimed at seeking industry input on the applicability boundaries of DeFi and its upcoming regulatory framework for crypto assets. Both consultations will close on November 18, 2026; the FCA plans to publish final guidance in January 2027 after reviewing feedback from various parties.The first consultation primarily targets FCA-regulated firms that use DeFi protocols or facilitate access to DeFi protocols. The guidance is not intended to introduce a new rulebook but aims to clarify how existing regulatory requirements should apply when firms provide services through highly automated, distributed ledger-based systems. The second consultation explores the scope of crypto asset regulation in the context of recent legislative changes (i.e., the "regulatory boundary").

Domain infrastructure company D3 announced the launch of the Frontier Hyperliquid Vault, a membership program that provides participants with priority access to a new round of top-level internet domains. Nasdaq-listed Hyperion DeFi (NASDAQ: HYPD) is listed as the launch partner for the vault. D3 is a core contributor to the Doma Protocol and one of the few ICANN-accredited Web3 registrars, with investors including Paradigm.At the launch of the program, ICANN opened the second round of new top-level domain applications in internet history in August 2026, receiving over 1,600 applications covering suffixes such as .agent, .crypto, .wallet, .sol, .robot, and .hype is also included in this round of applications. The last expansion occurred in 2012, resulting in approximately 1,200 new top-level domains, which are now used by tens of millions of websites.The participation process is as follows: users deposit qualified assets with supported custodians on Solana and Hyperliquid to earn Frontier Points, and then gain priority in registering domain names by committing points before formal registration. As part of the initial commitment, Hyperion DeFi will receive a distribution of DOMA tokens in future potential token generation events based on incentive arrangements with the Doma Foundation. The Doma Protocol is a DNS-compatible blockchain aimed at tokenizing the domain market, which is valued at approximately $36 billion.

According to Cointelegraph, Coinbase's European policy director Katie Harries wrote that the proposed cryptocurrency asset regulatory rules by the UK's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) may require regulated platforms to execute customer orders only on trading venues authorized by the FCA, thereby restricting users' access to decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols through compliant platforms.Since decentralized protocols typically do not have entities that can apply for regulatory authorization, the relevant rules may lead to regulated platforms being unable to provide DeFi access services, effectively creating a ban. The related cryptocurrency regulatory system is expected to be implemented starting October 25, 2027.