Thursday bitcoin bounced. The CoinGecko snapshot fetched at 00:24 UTC on October 2, 2026 put Bitcoin at $84,856, up 1.71%, ether at $2,706.37, up 0.97%, and Solana at $118.68, up 0.55%. Global market cap sat near $2.91 trillion, bitcoin dominance about 58.6%, and 24-hour volume about $97.0 billion. NEAR fell 8.90% to $4.82. The SEC proposed a tailored crypto-custody path for advisers and funds. Treasury designated the A7 Network as a significant transnational criminal organization and tied it to Nobitex. ESMA answered the EU MiCA review. EIP-8363 left Hegotá. Lighthouse shipped a medium-priority mainnet security tag, Nethermind 2.1.0 locked Sepolia Glamsterdam to October 6 at 13:53 UTC, Base said Cobalt is live, Aave Risk Stewards posted cap and rate cuts, and the CFTC closed the Fundsz digital-asset fraud case. Map the tape with Bitcoin history, Ethereum history, and How to read a crypto market snapshot. Keep DeFi, stablecoin, and layer-2 notes nearby if custody rules, MiCA, and Base B20 are the day’s stack.
Crypto brief: October 2, 2026
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SEC proposes self-custody and state-trust paths for adviser crypto
The SEC on October 1, 2026 proposed new Advisers Act and Investment Company Act custody rules for registered investment advisers and regulated funds (press release 2026-100, proposing release IA-7023). The package would let crypto assets sit in self-custody under stated conditions and would let state trust companies act as custodians for client and fund crypto. Public comments stay open for 60 days after the proposing release is published in the Federal Register. This is a proposal, not a live custody license.
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Treasury designates the A7 Network and proposes a Sub-Agent payment ban
The U.S. Treasury on October 1, 2026 used Operation Economic Outcast against the A7 Network, a Russia-tied shadow banking web that Iran has used to evade sanctions. FinCEN proposed a rule that would prohibit fund transmittals involving A7 Sub-Agents and issued a detection alert, while OFAC designated the network as a significant transnational criminal organization. Treasury said A7 claimed more than 2,000 transactions a day and more than 7.5 trillion rubles of volume, about $91.5 billion, or roughly 13 percent of Russia's 2025 foreign trade. The release links A7 to Nobitex, Iran's largest digital asset exchange designated on June 2, 2026, and to North Korean hacks of cryptocurrency exchanges.
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ESMA asks Brussels to tighten MiCA for DeFi, staking, and rogue sites
ESMA on September 30, 2026 answered the European Commission's MiCA review consultation (ESMA75-113276571-1721). It wants stricter crypto marketing rules, including influencer promotions, plus clearer cost, staking, lending, and borrowing disclosures. Supervisors would get more power to detect and deactivate fraudulent websites, freeze crypto assets on market-abuse or terrorist-financing suspicion, and stop regulated firms from offering non-compliant stablecoins. ESMA also wants a new regulated service for firms that give users access to DeFi protocols, plus the ability to issue binding opinions on token classification.
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EIP-8363 authors withdraw the issuance burn from Hegotá
Jérôme de Tychey posted on Ethereum Magicians at 09:34 UTC on October 1, 2026 that the co-authors are withdrawing EIP-8363 (Tapered Issuance Burn) from Consideration for Inclusion in Hegotá. The thread passed 200-plus comments in a few weeks. Industry parties and client contributors argued a fork-scoping exercise is the wrong venue for issuance policy, and the authors agreed. They sketched a separate process through a Devcon issuance forum in November, a Columbia workshop in January, and an EthCC forum in April aimed at CFI or SFI, and thanked Lido for offering to help steer it. Consensus rewards do not change on today's clients.
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Lighthouse v8.2.3 is a medium-priority mainnet security tag
Sigma Prime published Lighthouse v8.2.3 on October 1, 2026 at 02:15 UTC as a medium-priority beacon-node update for mainnet staking and non-staking users. The notes withhold the security details so operators can upgrade first. Sepolia operators are told to run v8.3.0-rc.0 instead, and the release flags a data-column backfill out-of-memory bug, especially on Gnosis, that is already fixed in that RC. Validator-client priority is listed as low.
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Nethermind 2.1.0 sets Sepolia Glamsterdam for October 6, 13:53 UTC
Nethermind tagged v2.1.0 on October 1, 2026 at 22:43 UTC and told every Sepolia node to upgrade before the Glamsterdam fork at 13:53:36 UTC on Tuesday, October 6, 2026. The tag ships final EIP-8037 state-gas rules, a TX_MAX_TOTAL_GAS_LIMIT cap, and Engine API alignment, plus 359 merged pull requests from 29 contributors. Most nodes can upgrade in place with no resync, but operators on the flat backend with a custom sync config, poacore, Flashbots relays, Parity-style traces, or plugins are told to read the breaking-changes list first.
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Base says Cobalt is live with Validity Transactions and B20 extras
Base Engineering wrote on September 30, 2026 that Cobalt, the chain's third upgrade, is live on mainnet. Traders can submit one signed transaction through base_sendRawTransactionValidity that stays out of blocks until stated onchain conditions hold, and submissions can stay private until inclusion. B20 now has composite OR and AND policies, scheduled multiplier updates aligned with ERC-8056 for actions such as splits, and seizeWithMemo for issuer-authorized balance moves when seize is enabled. Base says it does not choose the swap, the KYC list, or the seizure.
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LlamaRisk trims Gnosis caps and cuts X Layer USDC Slope 2
LlamaRisk posted an October 1, 2026 Risk Stewards note for Aave V3. On X Layer it would cut USDC Slope 2 from 40.00% to 20.00%, matching USD₮0 on that instance, while leaving the 90.00% optimal point, 0.00% base, and 4.50% Slope 1 unchanged. On Gnosis it would drop the sDAI supply cap from 20 million to 5 million and cut WXDAI supply from 4 million to 1 million and the WXDAI borrow cap from 3.7 million to 500,000, citing thin secondary-market liquidity. The team said it will implement the changes through the Risk Steward process.
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CFTC wins a $31.5 million Fundsz digital-asset fraud judgment
The CFTC on September 30, 2026 said the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida entered a default judgment against Brian Early and Alisha Ann Kingrey in the Fundsz digital assets and precious metals fraud. The court ordered $15,732,455 in restitution and a $15,752,455 civil monetary penalty, plus permanent registration and trading bans. Consent orders against the estate of founder Rene Larralde and Juan Pablo Valcarce already sent a residence and more than $2.7 million in other assets to the receiver. The orders resolve remaining claims from the 2023 case (Press Release 8766-23).