Wednesday bitcoin barely moved. The CoinGecko snapshot fetched at 00:19 UTC on October 1, 2026 put Bitcoin at $83,425, down 0.05%, ether at $2,679.93, up 0.38%, and Solana at $117.89, down 0.70%. Global market cap sat near $2.87 trillion, bitcoin dominance about 58.3%, and 24-hour volume about $100.7 billion. NEAR jumped 7.06% to $5.28. The U.K. FCA opened its crypto authorisation gateway. PowerCompute sold most of a pledged bitcoin stack to retire an Arch loan. Grayscale split ZCSH 3-for-1. Solana Company priced a $15 million registered direct. MetaMask began precautionary validator exits. Aave asked to list Open USD, Geth shipped v1.17.7, Compound posted a treasury-return draft, and Kraken set a 15-minute website and API window at 07:01 UTC. Map the tape with Bitcoin history, Ethereum history, and Solana history, plus How to read a crypto market snapshot. Keep stablecoin and DeFi notes nearby if OUSD listings and staking exits are the day’s stack.
Crypto brief: October 1, 2026
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FCA opens the UK crypto authorisation gateway
From 30 September 2026, crypto firms can apply to the U.K. Financial Conduct Authority for authorisation under the new cryptoasset regime. Applications are due by 28 February 2027, before the rules take effect on 25 October 2027. Authorisation is not automatic. Firms have to show they meet standards on consumer protection, safeguarding, market integrity, and financial resilience. Dominic Cashman, the FCA director of authorisation, said firms can now apply and start preparing for regulation. This is an application window, not a live license for anyone who files.
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PowerCompute sells 267.3 bitcoin to retire its Arch loan
On 24 September 2026, PowerCompute, Inc. (PWCM) elected to terminate, settle, and pay in full its bitcoin-secured loan with ChainFi Inc. doing business as Arch Lending. Arch sold about 267.3 of the 307 bitcoin the company had pledged to cover $21,892,132 of principal, $118,582 of accrued interest, and a $440,122 fee, then returned about 39.6 bitcoin. The 8-K also attaches a 30 September press release as Exhibit 99.1. This is a debt clean-up that reduced the pledged stack. It is not a new bitcoin buy.
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ZCSH runs a 3-for-1 split as NAV falls to $37.14
Grayscale Investments Sponsors, LLC effected a 3-for-1 forward split of The Zcash ETF (ZCSH) before NYSE Arca opened on 30 September 2026. Shareholders of record at the close on 28 September received two extra shares for each pre-split share after the close on 29 September. Share count rose from 7,989,300 to 23,967,900, and NAV per share fell from $111.41 to $37.14. The split did not change the total value of a holding. The ticker stays ZCSH on NYSE Arca and the CUSIP is unchanged. This is a share mechanic, not a new listing.
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Solana Company prices a $15 million registered direct
On 30 September 2026 Solana Company (HSDT) entered securities purchase agreements to sell 4,369,356 Class A shares at $3.433 each, plus matching warrants at $3.776, in a registered direct offering. Gross proceeds are expected to be about $15 million before fees, or about $14.3 million net. The 8-K says net proceeds are currently planned for accumulating SOL, working capital, and general corporate purposes. Close is expected on or about 1 October 2026, subject to customary conditions. Warrants are exercisable on issuance and expire 5.5 years later under effective S-3 333-290429. Exhibit 99.1 adds that as of 24 September the firm held 2.3 million SOL plus $2.3 million of cash and stablecoins, for $278 million of NAV at a $119 SOL price, with the share price a 5% premium to NAV per share. Shares are not in the treasury until the offering closes.
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MetaMask starts precautionary staking exits after an infrastructure incident
On 30 September 2026 MetaMask said it is responding to an ongoing security incident affecting part of its infrastructure and has identified no immediate threat to MetaMask wallets. As a precaution it is exiting affected validators in its non-custodial staking operations, and it does not manage withdrawal keys for clients. Lido's research forum said MetaMask Staking, formerly Consensys Staking, is exiting Lido validators, with the last exits expected by the end of 7 October 2026, not full withdrawals. stETH holders need take no action. ETH is expected back through the exit, withdrawal, and re-entry cycle over about 45 days. Lido pointed to an ad hoc reserve of more than 6,750 stETH. This is a node-operator exit, not a wallet drain.
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Aave Labs asks to list Open USD on V3 Core and V4 Core Hub
Aave Labs posted an ARFC on 30 September 2026 to onboard Open USD (OUSD) as a supply and borrow asset, with collateral disabled, on the Aave V3 Core Instance and the Aave V4 Core Hub on Ethereum. OUSD is a dollar-backed payment stablecoin issued by Bridge Building Inc, a Stripe subsidiary, under contract with Open Standard. Reserves are described as cash, short-term U.S. Treasuries, and qualifying money-market funds, with monthly EY attestations. Risk parameters and oracles wait on LlamaRisk recommendations and live Chainlink feeds. Aave Labs disclosed it is an Open Standard partner and said it has not received and will not receive compensation or reserve income tied to OUSD distribution. This is a forum ARFC, not a live listing.
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Geth v1.17.7 adds custom history pruning and Sepolia-ready miner fixes
go-ethereum released Intact Neuro-Coil (v1.17.7) on 30 September 2026 after publishing v1.17.6 to the Ubuntu PPA failed, plus later merged fixes. Operators can choose a custom history pruning point with --history.chain block-number:block-hash, including for prune-history and snap sync. The miner now counts both execution gas and state gas under EIP-8037 when selecting transactions. The notes also list a memory-leak fix when stopping the chain and a snap-sync txpool fallback restoration from a v1.17.3 regression. Both v1.17.6 and v1.17.7 are listed as ready for the Amsterdam fork on Sepolia on 6 October 2026. This is an execution-client patch, not a new consensus-client Gloas schedule.
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Compound draft would send EPCF and SVR funds back to the timelock
On 28 September 2026 a Compound forum post proposed closing the Ecosystem Protection and Continuity Fund and returning remaining assets plus accumulated mainnet Chainlink SVR revenue to the Governor Timelock. Balances checked that day, to be updated before submission, were about 500,000 USDC plus 4.58 million USDC supplied to Compound in the EPCF, and 355.95 ETH in mainnet SVR. The draft covers Ethereum mainnet only and leaves TMC approved allocations in place. It instructs EPCF Safe 0xF9a83C051B6658077415Ef077Fe0732e4Ca46Ae4 and the SVR Mainnet Rewards Safe signers to transfer remaining assets to Governor Timelock 0x6d903f6003cca6255D85CcA4D3B5E5146dC33925 within seven days of execution. This is a forum proposal, not an executed governance vote.
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Kraken schedules a 15-minute website and API halt at 07:01 UTC
Kraken said the spot exchange website and API will go through a systems upgrade starting Thursday, 1 October 2026 at 07:01 UTC, and will be unavailable for about 15 minutes. Clients should not place or cancel orders in that window. Deposits and withdrawals started during the maintenance may be delayed. Sign-in and other non-trading features stay operational. After the window, markets briefly enter cancel-only mode, then post-only mode, before returning to full function. The note is scheduled maintenance, not an unplanned outage.