Weekly Preview | Blast, Ebisu and Other Projects to Shut Down; Fed to Announce Decision; Google, Samsung and Other Tech Giants Report Earnings

Key previews:

• Blast will cease operations, advising users to withdraw assets to the Ethereum mainnet before October 26;

• The Fed announces its decision in the early hours of October 29; over 90% of economists expect a hold at 3.75%-4.00%;

• Stablecoin protocol Ebisu, NEAR ecosystem wallet MyNearWallet, Cardano Card, Ronin Waypoint, Balancer liquidity pools and others shut down;

• Google, Microsoft, Samsung, SK Hynix and other companies report earnings in quick succession;

• Falcon Finance (FF) is expected to unlock about 208 million tokens at 9 PM Beijing time on October 29, about 6.62% of circulating supply, worth about $20.7 million

October 26

Project updates:

Blast will cease operations, advising users to withdraw assets to the Ethereum mainnet before October 26

Blast posted on X announcing that it will cease operations. Blast said its goal at launch was to build a chain that is self-sufficient for users and developers, but the economics of operating the chain are no longer reasonable: the ongoing cost of maintaining Blast exceeds the revenue generated by the L2, and there is no credible path to making the chain's economics sustainable, so it decided to wind Blast down.

Blast said its top priority is to make the shutdown as smooth and safe as possible, requiring all users to withdraw assets from Blast to the Ethereum mainnet, including balances in the Blast PWA. To make withdrawals easier, it will reduce the withdrawal delay to 24 hours. As part of the shutdown process, Blast will first withdraw its Lido assets, expected to take about a week, during which withdrawals will be temporarily unavailable even though the delay has been lowered to 24 hours. Once that process is complete, withdrawals will resume with the new 24-hour delay. Users need to withdraw through the normal Blast interface before October 26, 2026. After that date assets can still be withdrawn, but users will need to interact directly with the Blast cross-chain bridge contract on Ethereum L1, and Blast will publish detailed instructions before that date.

On the exchange side:

Upbit plans to delist BLAST on October 26; Coinbase suspends BLAST trading, reminding users to transfer out before October 26.

BNB Standard to ring the Nasdaq opening bell on October 26

Nasdaq-listed company BNB Standard Corporation (ticker: BNC) announced that it will ring the opening bell at 9:30 AM ET on October 26 at the Nasdaq MarketSite in Times Square, New York, celebrating the company's adoption of its new name and the appointment of Alex Odagiu as chief executive officer on October 19. Odagiu will attend along with board members and management, and the livestream starts at 9:15. BNC says it holds the world's largest corporate BNB treasury and builds and operates businesses on BNB Chain, and plans to run BNB Chain validator nodes. Odagiu said most institutional investors have not yet researched BNB.

October 27

Project updates:

The Ethereum Glamsterdam upgrade, originally scheduled to activate on the Hoodi testnet in the early hours of October 27, has been postponed, with the date to be determined

The Ethereum Foundation announced that the "Glamsterdam" upgrade originally scheduled for October 27 (Epoch 132,352) on the Hoodi testnet has been postponed so that the interaction between EIP-8037 and mainnet smart contracts can be studied further. No new activation date has been set. The postponement cancels the originally planned "Amsterdam" execution layer activation and "Gloas" consensus layer activation. At the same time, the plan to raise Hoodi's gas limit to 200 million in the same Epoch has also been cancelled. This only withdraws the configuration for the future upgrade and will not roll back Hoodi's on-chain history.

October 28

Earnings:

SK Hynix: to publish Q3 2026 earnings before 8 AM on October 28, with an earnings call at 8 AM.

Policy and regulation:

U.S. CFTC creates Frontier Forum series, with the first forum on October 28 focused on AI and agentic finance

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Innovation Task Force is launching the "Frontier Forum Series" of public seminars, with the first forum set for October 28 on the theme of artificial intelligence and agentic finance. The aim is to promote dialogue among regulators, industry and the public on emerging fintech and to balance technological innovation with investor protection and market integrity. CFTC Chairman Michael Selig said it will engage directly with the builders, users and researchers of relevant technologies. The public can nominate speakers; in-person attendance may be limited and subject to security screening.

Australia releases draft bill on "proposed adoption of the OECD crypto tax reporting framework", consultation closes October 28

Australia has released a draft bill, the Treasury Laws Amendment Bill 2026: Tax Information Reporting, which is now open for public consultation until October 28. According to Australia's Department of the Treasury, the draft aims to establish a framework to incorporate the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (CARF) into Australian law and to introduce a domestic crypto-asset reporting regime.

Australia first expressed its intention to implement CARF in November 2023 and consulted on the proposed approach in the second half of 2024. The government subsequently announced plans to implement CARF and a domestic crypto-asset reporting regime in the 2025-26 Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook; international exchange of crypto tax information is expected to begin in 2028. The OECD approved CARF in August 2022 to address tax evasion risks arising from the growth of crypto assets.

Exchanges:

Binance to delist EPIC and QUICK on October 28

Binance will stop trading and delist all spot trading pairs for EpicChain (EPIC) and QuickSwap (QUICK) at 03:00 (UTC) on October 28, 2026. In addition, Binance Futures will close positions in the above token contracts and automatically settle them at 09:00 (UTC) on October 20, with opening of new positions prohibited from 08:30 (UTC) on October 20. Withdrawal services will stop being supported at 03:00 (UTC) on December 28.

Project updates:

Strategy proposes paying daily dividends on its U.S.-listed preferred shares for each calendar day, vote concludes October 28

Strategy is proposing to pay daily dividends on its U.S.-listed preferred shares (NASDAQ: STRF, STRC, STRK and STRD) for each calendar day, including weekends and holidays, payable on the next business day. If approved and adopted, Strategy believes this would reduce reinvestment lag, enhance liquidity and market efficiency, and improve price stability. The proposal is being voted on by MSTR shareholders, with voting opening October 5 and closing October 28. If approved, the first record date and payment date for STRC would be November 1 and November 2, and for STRF, STRK and STRD January 1 and January 4, 2027.

BNB Chain announces the Jenner hard fork will arrive on testnet on October 28

BNB Chain announced that the Jenner hard fork upgrade will go live on the BNB Smart Chain testnet on October 28. The upgrade will introduce the Payment Lane feature, reserving 5% of block gas capacity by default for eligible payment transactions; support millisecond-level block timestamps for smart contracts; and add functional support for the new compliant asset standard CAS20, with specific rollout arrangements for the related features to be announced separately.

Token unlocks:

Sign (SIGN) is expected to unlock about 401 million tokens at 6 PM on October 28, about 12.63% of released supply, worth about $4.3 million.

October 29

Macro:

Fed to announce its decision in the early hours of October 29

The Fed will announce its decision in the early hours of October 29. Reports say 94% of economists expect a hold at 3.75%-4.00%, and CME puts the probability of no change at about 84%; Warsh's press conference will focus on the wording of the statement and the December path, and Bloomberg noted that markets will be watching closely for clues on a December rate hike, with hawkish signals potentially pushing up U.S. Treasury yields.

At 20:30 on October 29: U.S. Q3 advance estimate of real GDP annualized quarter-on-quarter, U.S. September core PCE price index year-on-year, U.S. September PCE price index year-on-year, U.S. initial jobless claims for the week ending October 24, U.S. September personal spending month-on-month;

Earnings:

Alphabet, Google's parent company: to publish Q3 2026 earnings after 4 AM on October 29, with an earnings call at 4:30 AM.

Microsoft: to publish first-quarter fiscal 2027 earnings after 4 AM on October 29, with an earnings call at 5:30 AM.

Samsung Electronics: to hold its Q3 2026 earnings call at 9 AM on October 29, disclosing detailed financial results.

Project updates:

Unichain to migrate to OP Enterprise, mainnet migration on October 29

Uniswap's Layer 2 network Unichain posted on X that it will migrate to OP Enterprise to prepare for native OP Stack interoperability. Once interoperability is live, users will be able to move assets between OP Stack chains without a bridge, starting with ETH. The Unichain testnet will migrate on October 13, with mainnet migration planned for late October.

Token unlocks:

Falcon Finance (FF) is expected to unlock about 208 million tokens at 9 PM Beijing time on October 29, about 6.62% of circulating supply, worth about $20.7 million.

October 30

Earnings:

Intel: to publish Q3 2026 earnings after 4 AM on October 30, with an earnings call at 5 AM.

Coinbase: to publish Q3 2026 earnings after 4 AM on October 30, with an online earnings Q&A session at 5 AM.

Project updates:

CMCC Global with Tether and Bitfinex Securities launches El Salvador's first tokenized fund-of-funds products, subscription period ends October 30

Blockchain asset management firm CMCC Global announced that it will tokenize its Crest Fund (Crest) and Liberty Bitcoin Accumulation Fund (LBAF), calling them the first tokenized fund-of-funds products issued under El Salvador's digital asset legal framework. The two funds will be issued using Tether's Hadron tokenization platform and will raise funds from qualified investors through the regulated Bitfinex Securities platform, with the subscription period running until October 30, 2026.

Balancer community passes orderly shutdown proposal, liquidity pools to run until October 30

Balancer officially announced that BAL holders have voted to pass the orderly shutdown proposal BIP-928, while the forked proposal BIP-929 was not passed. Liquidity pools will operate as usual until October 30, with withdrawals always open during that period. Key dates: October 16 is the last deadline for partners to apply to extend designated V3 pools to November 30; from October 30, pools will become withdrawal-only where contracts allow, and the bug bounty program ends at the same time; on November 30 the V3 Vault will be paused. BAL holders need take no action for now, and are expected to be able to burn BAL from late May 2027 and claim vault assets proportionally; tetuBAL holders will receive BAL equal to 50% of their locked assets.

Stablecoin protocol Ebisu announces it will gradually shut down, frontend to be discontinued on October 30

Stablecoin protocol Ebisu announced that it will gradually shut down, with the frontend to be discontinued in 3 months (October 30). Users need to close vaults, withdraw Stability Pool deposits and ebUSD DEX liquidity before October 30; ebUSD minting has already been paused. Ebisu aimed to provide fixed-rate credit through ebUSD, but the team could not scale ebUSD liquidity enough to support meaningful borrowing activity, and attempts at instant liquidation, multi-chain collateral, structured vaults and other approaches all failed to solve the core bottleneck of CDP protocols — creating sufficient liquidity and durable demand for the stablecoin. Ebisu confirmed that the EBISU token will not launch and that there will be no airdrop to xEBISU or BOLD holders; xEBISU has no monetary value and is not redeemable. The team believes tokens should only exist when they can sustainably accrue real economic value.

Strategy to hold Q3 earnings call in the early hours of October 30

Strategy posted on X that it will hold its Q3 2026 earnings conference call at 17:00 ET on October 29 (5:00 AM Beijing time on October 30), livestreamed simultaneously via Zoom, X and YouTube.

Metis terminates Stargate support, LayerZero services stop on October 30

According to Metis's official X account, Metis Andromeda will see two changes this month: Stargate support ends on October 23, and LayerZero V1 routes need to be shut down before then; on October 30, LayerZero Labs' DVN and Executor will stop providing services for Metis. Users who provided liquidity to Stargate pools on Metis need to withdraw before October 23 — those who staked must first unstake, then select Metis Andromeda in the Stargate app to withdraw. Holders of m.USDC, m.USDT, WETH and METIS are unaffected; these assets are issued by Metis's official cross-chain bridge, and minting, redemption and the official bridge between Ethereum and Metis will operate as usual. In addition, Stargate V1 pools will close on all chains on December 15.

Ostium's second-phase compensation plan offers USDC installments or company equity, second-phase portal to launch October 30

Ostium posted its second-phase compensation plan, applicable to OLP holders who lost more than 1,000 USDC and did not opt for the convenience allocation. Category A is repaid in USDC installments, funded by assets already recovered and to be recovered in future and by protocol revenue (starting with 50% of opening fees); Category B allows losses to be converted into Ostium Labs equity at the valuation of the next funding round. The second-phase portal will launch on October 30. Ostium was previously attacked in July, losing $23.75 million.

Token unlocks:

Collector Crypt (CARDS) is expected to unlock about 59.26 million tokens at 3 AM Beijing time on October 30, about 9.60% of circulating supply, worth about $18.4 million.

Kamino (KMNO) is expected to unlock about 229 million tokens at 8 PM Beijing time on October 30, about 2.73% of circulating supply, worth about $9.1 million.

October 31

Project updates:

NEAR ecosystem wallet MyNearWallet to shut down on October 31, users need to migrate

NEAR Protocol posted on X that NEAR ecosystem non-custodial wallet MyNearWallet will stop service on October 31. NEAR said user assets are stored on-chain and users only need a new way to access them, and that assets can be transferred to near.com to swap, pay, earn yield and more across 30-plus chains, private by default.

NEAR provides a step-by-step guide to help users migrate to a near.com account controlled by a passkey. Before migrating, NEAR recommends first testing the process with a small amount; each time you use the Deposit function of a connected wallet, the deposit address is a one-time address and should not be reused; transfer one asset at a time and wait for it to complete; and keep MyNearWallet recovery information until each balance shows up in the new account. NEAR stressed that users should never share mnemonic phrases, recovery phrases or private keys, and that the NEAR Foundation, MyNearWallet and support staff will never ask for this information.

Cardano Card to stop service on October 31, Wirex moves to a non-custodial model

Cardano Card announced that it will stop service on October 31, 2026, with existing cardholders still able to use it normally until then. Its partner Wirex is moving to a non-custodial model and winding down custodial infrastructure, so the partnership will end on the same day. Cardano Card said it will soon announce more details about the next steps for the plan.

Circle to begin phasing out CCTP V1 from October 31, urging migration to V2 as soon as possible

Circle announced that the Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol CCTP V1 (Legacy) will begin gradual deprecation from October 31, 2026 and be fully discontinued on December 1. If an application still routes USDC through CCTP V1 contracts, migration should start immediately. Circle said CCTP V2 will become the only recommended path, supporting standard and fast transfer modes, programmable composability features such as Hooks, and subsequent new public chain integrations. Circle has published a migration guide blog, reminding developers to complete contract and routing updates in advance to avoid disruption to cross-chain USDC flows.

WorkBuddy international version integrates DeepSeek's new model, free for a limited time until October 31

WorkBuddy announced that its international version has integrated the latest DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash-1017 model and is offering it free until October 31. According to the official DeepSeek announcement it cited, the new model improves on benchmark performance, task completion speed and output conciseness compared with the previous generation, and has been optimized for platforms including DeepSeek Harness, Tencent CodeBuddy and WorkBuddy.

Social feed app Interface to shut down on October 31

Social feed app Interface tweeted that it will shut down service on October 31, 2026, and that users can export their wallet and follow lists via its web version. Interface founder wijuwiju.int.eth said Interface has been in maintenance mode for the past six months to reduce costs and think about its future direction, but he sees no sustainable path forward and therefore decided to shut it down. He said Interface has operated since 2022 and was once profitable but ultimately failed to scale.

Ronin Waypoint migration enters grace period, will fully stop service on October 31

Ronin tweeted that the Ronin Waypoint wallet migration has entered its final grace period, which runs until 23:00 on October 31, after which Ronin Waypoint will fully stop service and the migration will be complete. During the grace period, users who encounter problems with the migration can submit reports through Ronin Network support tickets, including their wallet address plus screenshots, transaction hashes or error messages. Users using mnemonic phrases or hardware wallets need take no action; issues involving game progress and soulbound assets should be raised directly with the relevant game teams.

November 1

Project updates:

DeepSeek to charge for Search and Fetch calls in some coding tools starting November 1

According to DeepSeek's official API documentation, starting at 00:00 Beijing time on November 1, 2026, when users use the DeepSeek API in DeepSeek Harness, Claude Code and Codex, requests that access the Search and Fetch interfaces through server-side tool calls will begin to be billed per call; previously these calls were not charged.

Search and Fetch are each charged 5 RMB per 1,000 successful requests, not billed by token or by number of returned results; failed requests, searches with no results or timeouts are not charged. Search is powered by DeepSeek's self-developed search engine and returns structured web results; Fetch retrieves a single web page and returns the Markdown body. The two interfaces are rate-limited independently per account, at a maximum of 5 requests per second.

StandX announces gradual shutdown, will not issue a token, one-time DUSD airdrop starting November 1

StandX announced that it will gradually cease operations and has decided not to issue a token, instead conducting a one-time, lock-up-free DUSD airdrop using remaining project revenue and additional team funds. The platform stopped all yield today, and from October 20 perpetual contracts will only allow position reductions; on January 15, 2027, all open positions will be closed at the mark price, and DUSD redemption and withdrawals will close on January 31. Airdrop claims will open at 08:00 Beijing time on November 1 and close at 16:00 on December 31.

Galxe: Gravity Alpha mainnet to shut down on November 1, assets can be migrated to Gravity L1

Galxe posted that with the Gravity L1 mainnet fully operational, network operations of the Gravity Alpha mainnet will officially end on November 1, 2026, when the network will permanently stop running and any assets still remaining on the Alpha mainnet will no longer be transferable. Meanwhile, the G staking page on Galxe will also go offline at the same time, and all staked G tokens must be withdrawn before that date. Developers also need to migrate dApps, bots or scripts deployed on the Alpha mainnet to Gravity L1.

Token unlocks:

Sui (SUI) is expected to unlock about 13.15 million tokens at 8 AM Beijing time on November 1, about 0.32% of circulating supply, worth about $12 million.

EigenCloud (EIGEN) is expected to unlock about 36.82 million tokens at 12 PM Beijing time on November 1, about 4.93% of circulating supply, worth about $7.3 million.