The Haunted Wallets: a Halloween hunt 🎃 We've hidden 2 wallets with $100 inside each. Find the 12-word seed phrase, open the wallet in any crypto wallet, and the reward is yours. First one in wins. Reward Wallet #1: $100 in BNB · Oct 26-28 Reward Wallet #2: $100 in SOL · Oct 29-31 How it works: 1. Every day we post clues with words from the phrase 2. Each word comes with its position, so you know where it goes 3. On the last day of each round, we drop the final 4 words at 19:00 UTC 4. Collect all 12, import the wallet, withdraw the reward To join: follow @SimpleSwap_io. These wallets exist only for this game. Never import a seed phrase you find online outside an official hunt like this 👻

In 2013, a man threw away a hard drive with the keys to about 8,000 BTC. It's still buried under a landfill in Wales, and he's far from the only one who lost a fortune to a forgotten key. Read now, word #5 is hidden in this article: bit.ly/4srK4Zl

The Squid Game rug In 2021, the SQUID token went from cents to over $2,800 in days. Holders couldn't sell. The developers pulled about $3.3 million, and the price hit zero within minutes. Have you ever bought a token you couldn't sell?

The Whale That Woke Up Last month, a Bitcoin wallet silent for 14 years moved all 600 BTC, about $51 million. Its owner bought in when one coin cost less than a cup of coffee. It made headlines BECAUSE (#7) wallets this old almost never move. Would you have held for 14 years?

The Vampire Attack 🧛 In August 2020, SushiSwap copied Uniswap's code and offered liquidity providers a new token, SUSHI, for moving over. In September, it pulled their liquidity across in one migration. About $810 million moved in a single day, more than half of Uniswap's liquidity. Nothing was stolen: providers chose to switch for the extra rewards. That's why DeFi calls it a vampire attack, not a hack. A week later, Uniswap answered with its own token, UNI. Would you have switched for the extra yield?

Clues come only from @SimpleSwap_io. Gas is already inside each wallet, so you'll never need to send anything to claim the reward. Anyone else posting seed phrases is setting a trap.

A smaller week all around. Total market capitalization fell to $2.67 trillion, down 3.49% over the past seven days. Sentiment kept cooling: the Fear and Greed Index slid from 51 to 43, still neutral but now closer to fear. BTC dominance held almost flat, easing to 60.10% from 60.30%. The Altcoin Season Index dropped from 55 to 50. Starknet topped the losers for a second week in a row, shedding another 25% after last week's 43% drop. MemeCore led the gainers with a 32% rise. With dominance flat and the index falling, capital is leaving the market as a whole rather than moving between Bitcoin and altcoins. Last week we asked whether this was a pause before the next rotation or the start of a Bitcoin-led stretch. So far it's neither: Bitcoin didn't pull ahead, and altcoins didn't rotate in. The index is now 25 points from altseason territory. Does the market find a floor around these levels, or does neutral sentiment tip into fear next?

Something's hidden on-chain 🎃 On Monday, a Halloween hunt begins. Real wallets, real rewards, and one more surprise at the end. Turn on notifications. You won't want to miss the first clue.

Scammers have found a new lure: compliance. Fake exchangers send you to a separate "AML check" site that looks legit, shows a progress bar and says your wallet is clean. Then one click empties it. Read below for what to look out for and what a real inspection looks like.

Musk says SpaceX and Tesla are looking at a merger. For crypto, the interesting part is the bitcoin: put the two together and you get over 30,000 BTC on one balance sheet. SpaceX holds 18,712 BTC, Tesla holds 11,509. Combined that's about $2.5 billion, enough to make it the sixth-biggest public company holding bitcoin. It's far from a done deal. Both companies set up independent committees to look at it, and Musk isn't even allowed in the room. His take: he likes the idea, but shareholders get the final say. On its own, a merger wouldn't add a single new coin. It just puts two existing stacks in one place. What happens next is the real question. So would a SpaceX-Tesla giant buy more bitcoin, or just forget it's there?

Your next job interview could cost you your crypto. To keep you safe, we're breaking down a scam that's been gaining serious traction this year. A "recruiter" sets up an interview, then swaps the meeting link at the last minute. The new page looks like Zoom or Teams and asks you to install an update or paste a command to fix the audio. That update is malware that goes after passwords, sessions and wallet keys. Microsoft tied one such campaign to $10M+ stolen in six months. Five checks before any interview call: 1️⃣ Link leads to a download? Ask for the meeting ID and join through the app you already have. 2️⃣ Update conferencing apps only from their own menu, never from a browser tab. 3️⃣ Never paste a command from a web page into a terminal. 4️⃣ Any request to run a file or disable protection ends the call. A real recruiter reschedules. 5️⃣ Keep wallets off the machine you use for calls and job hunting. Already ran something? Disconnect, and move funds to a new wallet from a clean device. Full breakdown: bit.ly/3UFI8zN

Strategy bought another 267 BTC last week for about $22 million, roughly $82,800 per coin. The interesting part is the contrast with the summer. As Bitcoin slid, Strategy sold for the first time in years: 6,948 BTC across four sales between late May and early August, for about $432 million. That works out to an average of roughly $62,150 per coin, about 18% below the company's average purchase price of around $75,400. It is worth noting that it is not so much a matter of timing as it is about how the model works. Strategy funds most of its purchases by raising capital through stock and preferred shares, which is easiest when the market is strong. During the summer drawdown, it sold part of its stack to cover preferred dividends and build a dollar reserve. Now that conditions have improved, it's buying again. Does this change how you see Strategy as a long-term Bitcoin holder?

CPI vs PPI: why crypto reacted to both last week CPI tracks what consumers pay for everyday goods and services. PPI tracks what producers get paid before those goods reach a store. When producer prices rise, some of that usually reaches consumers later, which is why markets treat PPI as an early warning. Last week both came in hot. CPI rose to 3.7% against 3.6% expected, and a day later PPI jumped to 6.3% against 5.3%, its highest in more than four years. Hotter inflation raises the odds of higher rates, which lifts yields and the dollar and weighs on crypto. BTC briefly dipped below $80,000 before recovering to around $83,000. Next up: the Fed meets October 27–28. Do you follow PPI, or just CPI?

It was another cautious week, with total market capitalization slipping to $2.77 trillion, down 2.33% over the past seven days. Sentiment cooled further: the Fear and Greed Index dropped from 57 to 51, staying in the neutral zone, while BTC dominance climbed back above 60% to 60.30%. The Altcoin Season Index fell from 66 to 55. Last week's leader became this week's biggest loser, with Starknet giving back 43% as its rally unwound around a scheduled token unlock. Monero led the gainers with an 11% rise. With dominance rising and the index falling at the same time, capital is moving back into Bitcoin rather than rotating through altcoins. So last week's question got its answer: a few breakout assets weren't enough to hold the rotation together. The index is now 20 points away from altseason territory. Is this a pause before the next rotation, or the start of a longer Bitcoin-led stretch?

Two Ethereum L2s announced shutdowns in one week. What's happening, why, and what to do if you bridged during the airdrop era. Blast went first on October 2. It once held around $2.3B, but TVL had fallen to about $32M, and the team said the chain now costs more to run than it earns. Four days later, Abstract, the chain behind Pudgy Penguins, followed after losing tens of millions funding it. The reason is mostly economics. Posting data to Ethereum got much cheaper, and activity has concentrated in a few big L2s. Once airdrop farmers leave, smaller chains struggle to pay their own bills. If you still have funds on Blast, Abstract or Silicon, each network has announced its own deadline, and the earliest one is this month. Check the details only through the project's official channels, and ignore anyone in your DMs offering to help you move funds.

Sending $200 through a typical remittance service costs around 6% on average, according to the World Bank. Sending USDT on TRON costs a few dollars or less, whatever the amount. That gap is why stablecoins became everyday money in so many countries. Our new guide shows how to use them in practice and what to watch out for along the way. Read the full version below.

A hardware wallet protects your keys, but only if the device reaches you untouched. That's the takeaway from the past week. Ledger found that some devices sold through an authorized reseller in Southeast Asia had been physically modified before they reached buyers, and moved quickly to pause sales with resellers in the region while it investigates. The secure chip and the device software weren't affected. The weak point was the path between the factory and the customer. A few habits make that path much safer, whatever brand you use. The most reliable option is to buy directly from the manufacturer's own store. When the device arrives, check the packaging, and if anything looks opened or resealed, don't set it up. A new hardware wallet should never come with a recovery phrase already written down. You generate the phrase yourself during setup, and it should never be typed into a phone or a website. If you bought from a third-party seller and something feels off, contact the manufacturer's support before moving any funds onto the device. Self-custody is about control, and that control starts before your first transaction. Where did you buy your hardware wallet?

CPI just came in hotter than expected, and Bitcoin dropped within minutes. If you've ever wondered why one inflation report can move crypto, here's the short version. CPI, the Consumer Price Index, tracks how much a typical basket of goods and services costs in the US from month to month. Core CPI is the same measure without food and energy, which swing a lot and can hide the underlying trend. That's why the Fed watches core more closely. The Fed uses these numbers to decide on interest rates. When inflation runs hot, it tends to keep rates high or raise them further. Higher rates make borrowing more expensive and make holding cash and bonds more attractive, so money moves out of riskier assets. Crypto often reacts first, since it trades 24/7 while stock markets wait for the opening bell. Today was a clean example. Headline CPI rose to 3.7% against 3.6% expected, and core hit 2.6% against 2.5%. The odds of a Fed hike at the October 27–28 meeting jumped from about 22% to around 45%, per Reuters, and BTC slipped below $83K. These releases are scheduled in advance, so the moves never come out of nowhere. The next CPI report lands on November 10. Do you keep an eye on macro data like CPI, or just watch the chart react?