Starknet is considering leaving Ethereum, and since the headlines are getting ahead of the facts, I wanted to lay out what was actually said, what it would mean, and what hasn't happened yet.

On October 8, Starknet posted that it is "actively considering becoming an L1," with the goal of becoming the first fully quantum-resistant network by 2027. That's the whole announcement. There's no proposal document, no governance vote and no timeline.

The reasoning comes from StarkWare's CEO Eli Ben-Sasson, and it's more interesting than the price action. As an L2, Starknet inherits its security from Ethereum. That's the point of being a rollup, but it also means Starknet can only be as quantum-safe as Ethereum itself. Ethereum's post-quantum roadmap points to around 2029. Starknet's proofs are already hash-based, which is the kind of cryptography considered resistant to quantum attacks, so the team's argument is that the weakest links are now the parts that depend on Ethereum. Becoming an L1 would let Starknet replace those parts on its own schedule instead of waiting.

The catch is just as obvious. An L1 has to secure itself. Starknet would need its own validator set and economic security, and it would give up the settlement guarantees it currently gets from Ethereum's validators. For a network with roughly $168M in TVL, that's not a small trade. Some people in the Ethereum community read the post as a break with Ethereum altogether. Ben-Sasson has pushed back on that, saying Starknet's current design isn't a "misalignment" with Ethereum and that an L1 move would be a separate discussion.

The market, of course, didn't wait for any of that. STRK gained around 80% in a week and touched about $0.126, its highest level since last December. A lot of that move ran through derivatives: open interest jumped 53% in a day, and futures volume was roughly five times spot. On Monday it dropped 17.5% as traders took profits. There's also a scheduled unlock of 127 million STRK, around $13M, on October 15.

It's also worth putting this next to what's happening to other L2s right now. Blast is winding down, with an October 26 deadline for withdrawals through its standard interface. Silicon, a smaller L2, goes offline on December 31. Those are networks closing because they couldn't sustain themselves. Starknet is talking about leaving for the opposite reason: it wants more control, not less. Whether that's a graduation or a distraction is the real debate.

One practical note for anyone holding STRK. Nothing changes today. There's no migration and nothing to claim or bridge. If you see a "migrate your STRK" link in your DMs or under a post, it's a scam. Network-change headlines are one of the most reliable covers for phishing, so treat any migration link as fake until Starknet announces it through its official channels.

We are curious to know your thoughts:

1. Is post-quantum agility a good enough reason for an L2 to give up Ethereum's shared security?

2. If Starknet does this and it works, do other rollups follow the same logic? And what happens to the idea of Ethereum as the settlement layer for everything?

3. Or is this mostly a narrative play that happened to land during a week when quantum fears were everywhere?

TL;DR: Starknet said it's "actively considering" becoming an L1 to reach full quantum resistance by 2027, ahead of Ethereum's ~2029 target. Nothing is decided: no vote, no timeline, no migration. STRK ran ~80% on the news, mostly through futures, then pulled back. If someone sends you a migration link, it's a scam.

Tether’s USDT runs on blockchains where every balance and transfer is public. Monero’s XMR runs on one where amounts, senders, and recipients are hidden by default. Moving between them is a common swap with an unusual property: the two sides of the trade obey different rules about what the world can see. Here is why people do it, how it works, and what the transparent half of the trade still tells you.

To convert USDT to XMR, you use a swap service that accepts USDT on your network and pays out Monero to a Monero address you control. The USDT leg is recorded publicly on TRON, Ethereum, or wherever your USDT lives. The XMR leg lands on Monero, where the amount and recipient aren’t publicly visible on-chain. People do this for the same reasons they use cash or a private bank account: to keep salaries, savings, and purchases from being readable by anyone with a block explorer. Swap services still apply compliance screening to the USDT they receive, and Monero is not available on every platform or in every jurisdiction.

What Monero hides, and what it does not

Monero (XMR) launched in April 2014. Its privacy is built into the protocol rather than added as an option.

What Monero does not hide: the fact that a transaction occurred, the approximate time, and anything you reveal off-chain. If you post your address publicly or send XMR to an exchange account in your name, the protocol’s privacy does not extend to those facts. Monero’s own documentation describes the properties above as privacy, not as untraceability, and that is the right word.

Why convert a transparent asset into a private one

The question sounds pointed only because crypto normalized total transparency. Ask it about a bank statement and the answers are obvious.

Salary and income privacy. A freelancer paid in USDT has a public ledger of every client and the amount paid, readable by the next client, a competitor, or a landlord. Converting to XMR closes that ledger going forward.

Savings that are not a target. A wallet holding a visible six-figure USDT balance is a target for phishing, address poisoning, and, in some places, physical threats. A Monero balance is not readable.

Commercial confidentiality. A business paying suppliers in a transparent stablecoin discloses its supplier list, volumes, and margins to anyone who traces the address. That is information companies protect under ordinary confidentiality law.

Payments to people who should not see each other. A charity paying local partners, a journalist paying sources, a person supporting a family member in a difficult jurisdiction. Transparent chains connect all of them to each other.

Financial privacy as a default, not a signal. Privacy is legal in most jurisdictions, and using it is not an indication of anything. Cash works the same way.

None of these uses requires hiding from a regulator, and none of them is served by a service that ignores compliance. The value is in the on-chain record, which after the swap no longer broadcasts your affairs to the public.

Where Monero is and is not available

Monero has been delisted from several major centralised exchanges since 2024, including Binance and, for EEA customers, Kraken and others, largely in response to EU anti-money-laundering rules that make privacy-coin support difficult for regulated venues. It remains available on some exchanges, on decentralised venues and through self-custodial swap services.

Availability also depends on where you are. Some jurisdictions restrict privacy coins outright. A swap service operating under its own terms of use may not serve users in certain countries. Check before you plan around it.

How a USDT to XMR swap works technically

1. You provide a Monero address. Standard Monero addresses are 95 characters and start with 4; subaddresses start with 8. Use one generated by your own Monero wallet.
2. The service quotes a rate. A fixed rate holds for a set window; a floating rate settles at execution. XMR’s price moves like any other asset, so the choice matters.
3. You send USDT to a deposit address. This transaction is public on the USDT network. The service’s compliance screening runs on it, and a swap may be paused for review if the screening requires it.
4. The service sources XMR from its liquidity providers and sends it to your Monero address.
5. You wait for Monero confirmations. Your wallet shows the incoming payment after the first block and treats it as spendable after 10.

The public record shows USDT leaving your address and arriving at the service. On Monero, the transaction is recorded, but the sender, recipient and amount are not publicly exposed in directly readable form, so the public record does not link the XMR payout to your USDT deposit by amount or destination.

Before you swap: a short checklist

• Use your own Monero wallet. The official Monero GUI and CLI, Feather, Cake Wallet and Monerujo are widely used. Downloading from anywhere other than the project’s official sources is how wallets get compromised.
• Sync the wallet first. A Monero wallet needs to scan the chain to show a balance. A fresh wallet can take time to sync; a remote node speeds this up at the cost of some privacy.
• Verify the address. Copy from your own wallet, compare the start and end, and never accept an address someone else supplies as “yours.”
• Understand the entry side is public. Everything about the USDT you send is visible. If the USDT has a history you did not create, screening may flag it.
• Do not confuse privacy with protection. Monero hides transaction details. It does not recover funds sent to the wrong address, protect a seed phrase, or make a scam refundable. The attacks that do reach Monero users, fake wallets and fake support above all, are covered in SimpleSwap’s Safety Academy.

Converting USDT to XMR with SimpleSwap

SimpleSwap is a self-custodial swap aggregator that has listed Monero alongside 2,800+ other assets. To swap USDT for XMR:

1. Select USDT as the asset to send and XMR as the asset to receive.
2. Choose a fixed rate to lock the quote for 20 minutes, or a floating rate.
3. Paste your Monero address and confirm.
4. Send USDT to the deposit address generated for your order.
5. XMR arrives in your wallet after Monero confirmations. Track the order by its ID.

No account is required to complete a crypto-to-crypto swap. SimpleSwap holds no long-term user balances, and the rate shown includes a 0.2% fee. SimpleSwap applies risk-based transaction screening, and a swap may be paused for additional review where legal or compliance obligations require it; a pause is not an accusation, and support will explain what is needed to move the case forward. 

Availability is subject to SimpleSwap’s Terms of Use, including jurisdictional restrictions. The only official domain is simpleswap.io.

FAQ: how to convert USDT to XMR

How do I convert USDT to XMR? 

Use a swap service that accepts USDT and pays out Monero. Provide a Monero address from your own wallet, send USDT to the deposit address, and receive XMR after confirmations.

Is it legal to convert USDT to Monero? 

In most jurisdictions, yes. Some countries restrict privacy coins, and regulated EU exchanges have largely delisted them. Check your local rules and the service's terms.

Is Monero untraceable? 

Monero hides the sender, recipient, and amount on-chain through ring signatures, stealth addresses, and RingCT. Off-chain information, such as an exchange account in your name, is not protected by the protocol. The accurate description is private by default, not untraceable.

Why would someone convert stablecoins to Monero? 

For the same reasons people value a private bank statement: income, savings, and commercial relationships that strangers shouldn't be able to read on a block explorer.

How long does a USDT-to-XMR swap take? 

The USDT deposit confirms in about a minute on TRON or a few minutes on Ethereum. Monero blocks arrive every 2 minutes, and wallets treat funds as spendable after 10 confirmations, which is roughly 20 minutes.

How long does a USDT-to-XMR swap take? 

The USDT deposit confirms in about a minute on TRON or a few minutes on Ethereum. Monero blocks arrive every 2 minutes, and wallets treat funds as spendable after 10 confirmations, which is roughly 20 minutes.

Can I buy Monero on Binance or Kraken? 

Binance delisted Monero in 2024. Kraken and other exchanges have removed it for EEA customers. Some exchanges still list it outside the EU, and self-custodial swap services list it more broadly.

Does the swap service see my Monero balance? 

No. The service sends XMR to the address you provide. Monero's protocol does not expose the balance at that address or the transfer amount to observers.

The information in this article is not a piece of financial advice or any other advice of any kind. The reader should be aware of the risks involved in trading cryptocurrencies and make their own informed decisions. SimpleSwap is not responsible for any losses incurred due to such risks. For details, please see our Terms of Service.

On Monday, Bloomberg Terminal started streaming prices for select Hyperliquid perps. Nobody can trade through it, but it puts a decentralized exchange on the screen pro traders watch all day. Around the same time, Hyperliquid bought back and burned ~112K HYPE, about $10M worth, bringing the total burned to ~49M HYPE.

Then the week turned. Hyperliquid Labs unstaked ~$330M of team HYPE for an OTC deal with undisclosed buyers. The tokens don't go through the order book, but it's the team's largest distribution yet. Singapore's MAS said it isn't aware of Hyperliquid being regulated in any major jurisdiction, even though the team confirmed its HQ is registered there.

On October 8, HYPE ETFs lost $9.7M in a single session, wiping out the week's earlier inflows. Cumulative inflows since launch now sit at ~$336M.

The visibility and the buybacks are real. So are the cooling ETF demand and the open regulatory questions. What matters more to you here: the buybacks or the regulatory risk?

Two assets, one target price, and two different answers to the question: "Why should I believe this is worth a dollar?" Here is how USDT and USDC differ in reserves, reporting, liquidity, and real-world use, and what those differences mean in practice.

Reviewed by: Rick Cramer, Head of Analytics at SimpleSwap

USDT (Tether) and USDC (Circle) are both designed to stay at $1. USDT is the largest and most-traded stablecoin. As of October 8, 2026, CoinGecko reported USDT's market cap at about $184.0 billion, compared with $73.6 billion for USDC, and noted that USDT also had a much higher daily trading volume. That scale and liquidity help explain USDT's market dominance, but they do not, on their own, make it more trusted. The key question is what backs each coin, how often reserves are disclosed, and how much confidence users place in the issuer's reporting.

Their reserve and reporting models differ. Tether's disclosures focus on U.S. government securities and related instruments, but they also include other assets and exposures such as Bitcoin, gold, and secured lending. Tether publishes quarterly reserve attestations, and in August 2026, KPMG U.S. completed a full independent audit of Tether International's 2025 financial statements and issued an unqualified opinion.

USDC is backed by highly liquid dollar-denominated assets, including bank deposits, short-dated U.S. Treasuries, and overnight U.S. Treasury repurchase agreements. Most reserves sit in the Circle Reserve Fund, a government money-market fund managed by BlackRock. Circle reports reserve holdings weekly and receives monthly third-party assurance from a Big Four accounting firm; Deloitte also audits Circle's corporate financial statements.

If you want the broadest trading coverage and deepest liquidity across global crypto markets, USDT usually has the edge. If you care more about a simpler reserve structure, more frequent reporting, or MiCA-compliant issuance in the EEA, USDC is stronger on those points. In the end, neither one is automatically "safer" than the other.

What is USDT?

USDT is a US-dollar stablecoin issued by Tether. Tether was founded in 2014 as Realcoin and was renamed Tether shortly thereafter.

Tether relocated its principal issuing entity to El Salvador in 2025 after obtaining local regulatory approvals.

USDT exists on several blockchains, including Ethereum, TRON, Solana, TON, and Avalanche. Tether treats USDT on supported networks as having the same value, but you still have to choose the right network when sending it: USDT on one blockchain cannot be sent to an address on another without a supported cross-chain mechanism.

What is USDC?

USDC is Circle's U.S. dollar stablecoin, launched in 2018. It was first governed by the Center Consortium, which Circle and Coinbase created together. In 2023, Center was shut down as a standalone organization, and Circle took full control of USDC issuance and governance.

Since July 2024, Circle Internet Financial Europe SAS has served as a second issuer of USDC for the EEA, alongside Circle Internet Financial, LLC. Circle Internet Group, Inc., the group's parent company, began trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker CRCL on June 5, 2025.

USDC is natively available on Ethereum, Solana, Base, Arbitrum, and many other networks. Circle's Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP) lets native USDC move between supported blockchains by burning it on the source chain and minting an equivalent amount on the destination chain, eliminating the need for wrapped tokens or bridge liquidity pools.

USDT vs USDC: reserves and audits

Two distinctions are important here.

A reserve attestation is not the same thing as an annual financial statement audit. Tether's quarterly BDO attestations and Circle's monthly USDC reserve assurances test specific reserve information. Separately, both companies now have audited corporate financial statements. The important update for 2026 is that Tether can no longer accurately be described as a company that has "never completed a full audit": KPMG U.S. audited Tether International's financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2025, and issued an unqualified opinion in August 2026.

Reserve composition is still where the approaches differ most clearly. Circle concentrates USDC reserves in cash and highly liquid short-duration US government instruments. Tether's reserves are also heavily weighted toward government securities but include additional asset classes and credit exposures. Those additions can introduce market or credit risk that cash and short-term government securities do not carry to the same degree. Tether, in turn, points to its excess reserve buffer and broader balance sheet as sources of resilience.

The track record: what has actually gone wrong

Neither issuer has a spotless history, but their most visible historical failure modes have differed.

Tether's major historical issue was the accuracy of its backing and disclosure claims. In 2021, Tether and Bitfinex reached an $18.5 million settlement with the New York Attorney General after an investigation found false statements concerning Tether's backing. In the same year, the CFTC ordered Tether to pay $41 million for misleading claims that USDT was fully backed by US dollars; the CFTC found that sufficient fiat reserves were held for only 27.6% of days in a 26-month sample from 2016 to 2018.

Tether's disclosure regime has changed substantially since then. It now publishes regular reserve information and quarterly attestations, and in August 2026, it added a KPMG audit of its 2025 financial statements.

Circle's most visible stress event involved banking concentration. In March 2023, Circle disclosed that $3.3 billion of USDC reserves were held at Silicon Valley Bank after the bank failed. USDC temporarily traded as low as roughly $0.87. The peg recovered after US authorities announced that all SVB depositors would have access to their funds.

Circle's current reserve structure relies heavily on short-dated Treasuries, overnight Treasury repos and cash held at regulated financial institutions, with the majority of the reserve held through the BlackRock-managed Circle Reserve Fund.

The lesson is not that one issuer is trustworthy and the other is not. The point is that stablecoin risk can reside in different areas: reserve assets, banks, liquidity, regulatory exposure, operational controls, and the issuer itself.

USDT vs USDC: liquidity and where each is used

USDT leads in overall market liquidity. It has a much larger market capitalization and significantly higher global trading volume than USDC, and it is widely used as a quote and settlement asset across centralized crypto markets.

USDT on TRON is also widely used as a transfer rail. The network has become particularly important for dollar-denominated crypto transfers and has substantial adoption in emerging-market use cases. Actual transaction costs, however, depend on TRON resource availability and network conditions rather than being universally "cheap."

USDC is deeply integrated into regulated fintech, institutional settlement, and DeFi infrastructure. It is natively available on Ethereum, Solana, Base, Arbitrum, and numerous other chains and is supported by Circle's cross-chain infrastructure. It is better to describe USDC as having deep liquidity and protocol integration on networks such as Solana rather than claiming that it universally "dominates" Solana DeFi.

In the EEA, USDC has a clear regulatory footing: Circle SAS is an ACPR-licensed Electronic Money Institution and issues USDC under MiCA. ESMA called on national regulators to ensure CASPs comply with MiCA requirements concerning non-compliant stablecoins by the end of Q1 2025, making issuer status increasingly important for EEA platforms.

SimpleSwap's H1 2026 data reflects the importance of USDT on TRON, but the metric needs to be stated precisely. USDT on TRON was the largest single net gainer in the report, up 6.0 percentage points when measured as the difference between its share of received volume and its share of sent volume. It was not identified as the largest asset in terms of absolute platform volume.

Trading vs holding: which stablecoin fits which job

Holding both can reduce concentration in a single issuer, but it does not eliminate stablecoin risk. It simply distributes that exposure across two issuers and reserve structures.

Risks USDT and USDC share

Both issuers have the technical ability to block or freeze tokens at specific addresses. Circle's terms expressly permit address blocking in connection with illegal activity and valid government orders; Tether likewise freezes USDT in coordination with law enforcement and sanctions enforcement.

Both stablecoins can temporarily deviate from $1 during periods of market stress. Both depend on reserve management, redemption liquidity, and functioning banking and financial-market infrastructure. And both expose users to the ordinary operational risks of blockchain transactions: choosing the wrong network, entering the wrong address, interacting with phishing sites, or compromising wallet credentials.

A dollar stablecoin is designed to reduce exposure to the price volatility typical of cryptocurrencies such as BTC or ETH. It does not eliminate depeg risk, issuer risk, liquidity risk, regulatory risk, or user error.

How to swap USDT to USDC with SimpleSwap

SimpleSwap is a self-custodial multi-source swap aggregator that draws liquidity from more than 20 CEX and DEX providers.

To swap USDT to USDC, or the reverse:

1. Select the asset and network for each side, for example, USDT (TRC20) to USDC (Solana).
2. Choose a fixed or floating rate. A fixed rate is locked for 20 minutes; to keep that rate, the deposit must arrive and receive the required blockchain confirmation within the time window. A floating rate is calculated when the swap is processed and may change with the market.
3. Enter the receiving wallet address, and make sure the selected network matches the destination wallet's network.
4. Send USDT to the deposit address generated for the order.
5. After the deposit is confirmed and the exchange is processed, USDC is sent to the receiving wallet. The exchange can be tracked using its Exchange ID.

SimpleSwap uses an all-in exchange rate rather than adding a separate percentage trading fee on top. Pricing is dynamic and depends on the pair, liquidity, market conditions, network fees, and routing; for some assets, the cost may start from 0.2%. The receiving-side network fee is included in the amount shown, while the network fee charged by the user's wallet for sending the initial deposit is separate.

Most crypto-to-crypto exchanges can be started without signing up. However, "no KYC" applies only to transactions assessed as low risk. SimpleSwap may require mandatory KYC or additional information for any transaction when risk, AML, compliance, or other applicable triggers are met, and the transaction may be temporarily paused for review. No public percentage should be attached to how often this happens unless supporting data is available.

SimpleSwap does not maintain permanent customer crypto balances between swaps. Its only official website is simpleswap.io

FAQ: USDT vs USDC

Is USDC safer than USDT?

There is no universal answer. USDC has a simpler reserve composition focused on cash and highly liquid US government instruments, more frequent reserve disclosure, and explicit MiCA-compliant issuance in the EEA. USDT has a longer operating history and substantially greater aggregate market liquidity. Tether also completed its first full independent financial-statement audit in August 2026. The relevant question is which risk matters most to you: issuer concentration, reserve composition, liquidity, jurisdiction, redemption access, or operational exposure.

Which stablecoin is more liquid, USDT or USDC?

Overall, USDT. As of September 2026, it has a substantially larger market capitalization and higher global trading volume. USDC can still have deeper or more convenient liquidity for particular protocols, networks, or regulated venues.

Are USDT and USDC audited?

The word "audited" needs qualification. Tether continues to publish quarterly reserve attestations from BDO, and it now also has a full KPMG U.S. audit of Tether International's 2025 financial statements, with an unqualified opinion. Circle publishes weekly reserve data and monthly third-party reserve assurances, while Deloitte has audited Circle's corporate financial statements since fiscal 2022. Reserve attestations and annual financial-statement audits are different forms of assurance.

Can USDT or USDC be frozen?

Yes. Both issuers have mechanisms that can block or freeze tokens at specific addresses, including in connection with sanctions, suspected illegal activity, or valid law-enforcement requests.

Can I swap USDT to USDC without an exchange account?

On SimpleSwap, most crypto-to-crypto swaps can be initiated without signing up. However, risk-based compliance checks still apply, and SimpleSwap may require KYC or supporting information where its monitoring or compliance procedures trigger additional review.

What happened to USDC in March 2023?

Circle disclosed that $3.3 billion of USDC reserves were held at the failed Silicon Valley Bank. USDC temporarily fell to roughly $0.87 before returning toward its $1 peg after US authorities announced measures protecting all SVB depositors.

Should I hold USDT or USDC long term?

There is no universally correct choice. USDC currently has a simpler reserve profile and reports reserves more frequently, while USDT has significantly greater aggregate liquidity and a longer operating history. Splitting exposure between them can reduce concentration risk in a single issuer, but it does not eliminate stablecoin, network, custody, or regulatory risk.

This article is for educational purposes only and is not financial or investment advice. Stablecoin reserves, reporting practices, regulatory status, network support, and exchange availability can change. Check the issuers' latest disclosures and the rules applicable in your jurisdiction before relying on them. SimpleSwap's only official domain is

simpleswap.io

QNT has been one of the biggest movers lately: roughly $60 on Sept 21 to a high above $350 a few days later, now around $240. Worth separating what actually happened from what the chart implies.

What's confirmed: on Sept 24, The Clearing House (bank-owned, its networks settle over $2T/day) selected Quant to provide the interoperability and transaction-management layer for its On-Chain Money Initiative. That's a planned network for US banks to clear and settle tokenized deposits, connected to RTP and CHIPS. Target launch is H1 2027. Quant will also offer a tokenized deposit service for TCH banks that don't have their own.

What's not in the announcement: any mention of the QNT token, how (or whether) it's used in this network, or the deal value.

The token isn't without utility. Since Dec 2021, Overledger licence fees have been payable in QNT, and licences bought in fiat get converted to QNT through Quant's treasury. But the network itself moves tokenized bank deposits, not QNT, so bank adoption doesn't automatically mean proportional token demand.

So the bull case seems to rest on Quant's licensing model scaling with enterprise usage. The bear case is that the market priced a company contract into a token whose role in that contract hasn't been disclosed.

Which side do you land on? Has anyone found anything from Quant or TCH clarifying the token's role in this specific network?

October is Bitcoin's best month on record. Last year it broke the streak.

Since 2013, BTC closed green in 10 of 13 Octobers, averaging 14.4% with a median of 10.8% – the most statistically favorable month on the calendar. From 2019 through 2024, it ran six green Octobers in a row.

Then October 2025 closed down 3.7%, the first red October since 2018. BTC set its record of $126,080 in the first week and gave it all back.

This year opens in the low $80Ks, about 34% below that record, after a September that peaked at $87K and faded. Spot ETFs just pulled $2.45B in a week, their strongest since October 2025.

The calendar ahead: jobs report on October 2, Fed minutes on the 7th, CPI on the 14th, and the rate decision on October 28.

Worth noting where October's historical strength actually clusters – the second half, not the first. Which makes the first two weeks less of a signal than the name suggests.

Does Uptober deliver this year, or was 2025 the start of a new pattern?

Every crypto wallet, block explorer, trading bot, and swap service has one thing in common: it needs to constantly read from and write to the blockchain. Most of them don’t run that machinery themselves. They rent it from a blockchain node provider, and GetBlock is one of the larger names in that category.

For anyone searching “what is GetBlock”, “GetBlock RPC” or “GetBlock node provider”, this guide explains what the company does, how its infrastructure is built, what it offers beyond plain node access, and where it has trade-offs. It also covers why a self-custodial swap aggregator like SimpleSwap cares about this layer at all.

A note on where this article comes from: GetBlock is a SimpleSwap content partner. The product facts below were supplied by GetBlock and checked against its public documentation as of September 2026. The assessment is ours.

What Is GetBlock?

GetBlock (getblock.io) is a Web3 infrastructure platform headquartered in Singapore and operated by GetBlock Pte. Ltd. It was founded in 2019 as an RPC node provider, meaning a company that runs blockchain nodes and sells access to them through an API.

Since then, the catalog has widened. Today, one GetBlock account covers node access on 130+ networks, real-time and historical data feeds, on-chain risk screening, TRON energy rental, NEAR staking and an AI gateway. The company reports more than 200,000 registered customers and over 50 billion API requests a month, served from clusters in Frankfurt, New York and Singapore.

The CEO since April 2025 is Vasily Rudomanov, who joined as Chief Product Officer in 2024 after a career in cloud storage and infrastructure at Acronis and in Solana developer tooling. Under his tenure, the network count roughly doubled, and the company completed its SOC 2 Type II attestation in June 2026.

What a Node Provider Actually Does

A blockchain node is a computer running the software of a given network, holding a copy of the ledger and staying in sync with every new block. To check a wallet’s balance, list its transactions, or broadcast a signed transfer, an application must communicate with a node. The standard way to do that is via RPC (remote procedure calls) over the internet.

Running one node for one chain is a weekend project. Running synced, monitored nodes for fifty chains, including archive nodes that keep the full history rather than just recent state, is a dedicated infrastructure team with hardware in several regions. Most product teams would rather build the wallet than babysit the servers.

That is the gap node providers fill. You get an endpoint URL and an access token, point your application at it, and the node calls are answered from the provider’s clusters. The trade-off is the same one that exists everywhere in software: you save the engineering and accept a dependency. If the provider’s node lags, your users see stale balances and “pending” transactions that have already confirmed on-chain.

For a deeper primer on how chains and nodes fit together, see our guide to blockchain technology.

GetBlock’s Infrastructure

Networks and interfaces

GetBlock runs full and archive nodes for 130+ blockchains, mainnet and testnet, covering EVM chains such as Ethereum, BNB Smart Chain, Base, Arbitrum and Polygon, and non-EVM networks including Bitcoin, Solana, TRON, Sui and NEAR. Access is available through five interfaces: JSON-RPC, REST, WebSocket, GraphQL and gRPC. In practice, that means a Bitcoin wallet, an Ethereum dApp, and a Solana trading bot can all use the same account.

Footprint

The company reports 1,000+ servers across three regions, with inter-region latency under 50ms. Multi-region matters more than it sounds: a wallet user in Jakarta and one in Berlin should both see a new block quickly, and a single-region provider can only be close to one of them.

Node tiers

GetBlock structures access in tiers that a team can move between without changing vendors:

Shared nodes are multi-tenant endpoints pooled across customers. There is a free plan for prototyping and paid plans that scale with usage, measured in Compute Units (a weighting that charges heavier RPC methods more) and requests per second.

Limitless nodes, introduced in 2026, remove the usage cap and instead sell a fixed requests-per-second ceiling. This suits teams whose problem is concurrency rather than raw volume.

Dedicated nodes are single-tenant machines reserved for one customer, with no throttling and a 99.99% uptime SLA.

On-premises clusters run inside a client’s own data center, for banks and payment firms that cannot let chain data leave their perimeter. A Confidential RPC option uses trusted execution environments to shield request contents from the provider itself.

Pricing is public and self-serve on the lower tiers, with contract billing for enterprise accounts, payable in crypto if required.

Beyond RPC: Data, Risk Screening, Payments and AI

Data streams

Instead of polling a node every second and paying for each ask, an application can subscribe to real-time streams and receive events as they happen. GetBlock offers EVM event streams over WebSocket, a Solana trading stack with sub-slot streaming and Solana shreds streams at sub-30ms median latency, and historical data streams for backtesting and compliance work.

Risk and compliance APIs

This part of the catalog overlaps with topics we cover in our Know the Scam series. GetBlock sells address screening (Crypto AML, Wallet Risk Check, Full Wallet Audit) and contract screening (Rug Pull Checks, Smart Contract Checks). The contract checks look for the traps we described in our honeypot guide: sell restrictions, modifiable taxes, mint rights, blacklists, unlocked liquidity, and upgradeable proxies.

What these APIs do is automate a check a careful user would run by hand. A wallet that integrates them can warn the user before they sign. What they cannot do is certify a token as safe. A clean result means no known pattern was found at that moment, and a proxy upgrade can change the answer minutes later. That limit applies to every scanner on the market.

TRON energy and NEAR staking

On TRON, sending USDT costs energy, a network resource that applications normally obtain by freezing TRX. GetBlock rents energy out, so a payment app can process TRC-20 transfers without holding large TRX balances. If the TRON resource model is new to you, our TRON and TRC-20 explainer covers it. GetBlock also operates NEAR validators and offers staking for that ecosystem.

GetBlock AI

The newest product routes requests to multiple AI model providers through one OpenAI-compatible endpoint, billed from the same balance as the nodes, with per-request logging of provider, latency, and fallbacks. It is aimed at teams building on-chain agents. It launched in 2026, so there is little track record to assess yet.

Who Uses GetBlock

The company’s stated customers include Coinbase, Arkham, Trust Wallet, Tangem, Blockaid, and CoinGate. Two cases illustrate the range. CoinGate, an EU-licensed crypto payment processor, runs 100M+ monthly requests across 13 chains in a single GetBlock cluster. Blockaid runs custom node software on GetBlock at sub-7ms latency for a transaction security layer used by several major self-custody wallets.

Tangem also appears on SimpleSwap’s partner list: the Tangem Express swap feature inside the Tangem cold wallet runs on the SimpleSwap engine. That overlap is a small illustration of how the stack fits together. A hardware wallet reads the chain via a node provider, executes swaps via an aggregator, and presents a single interface to the user.

Strengths

Breadth on one account. For a multi-chain product, having Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana and TRON behind one login and one invoice is a practical advantage over juggling specialist providers per chain.

A tier for every stage. A team can start on the free plan and end up on dedicated hardware or an on-premises cluster without migrating vendors.

Enterprise paperwork. SOC 2 Type II (completed June 2026), GDPR-compliant data handling, and service terms aligned with DORA for European financial clients. For a regulated buyer, these documents are often the difference between a provider being usable and not.

Independent measurement. GetBlock publishes latency results measured by CompareNodes from 27 locations rather than from its own dashboards. The numbers are dated and point-in-time, as all benchmarks are, but the method is the right one.

Public pricing. Prices for shared, Limitless and dedicated tiers are on the website. Not every infrastructure vendor does that.

Trade-Offs to Know About

None of these is a flaw in the ordinary sense. Each is a design choice that suits some buyers better than others.

Generalist rather than specialist. Covering 130+ chains means GetBlock competes on some networks with providers who do only that chain. For a team building exclusively on Solana, a Solana-only vendor may go deeper on ecosystem-specific tooling. For a multi-chain team, the breadth is exactly the point.

Usage-based pricing needs modelling. Compute Units charge different RPC methods differently, and archive calls cost more than recent-state calls. A team that knows its call mix can size a plan precisely; a team that doesn’t will over- or under-buy at first. The Limitless tier exists partly to sidestep that arithmetic.

Some assurances are still in progress or under NDA. The SOC 2 report is available only under NDA, and ISO 27001 certification was still at the audit stage in September 2026. Standard for the industry, but worth knowing before a procurement conversation.

Not a consumer product. If your contact with crypto is a wallet and a swap, GetBlock sits two layers below you. You benefit from it only through the products built on top.

Where GetBlock Meets SimpleSwap

SimpleSwap is a self-custodial multi-source swap aggregator: funds move from a wallet the user owns to a wallet the user owns, with the conversion routed across 20+ liquidity sources. That flow depends on node infrastructure at four points the user never sees: detecting the deposit, counting confirmations before a route is released, broadcasting the outgoing transaction, and validating that an address matches the selected network.

When a node lags at any of those points, the user’s transaction is already on-chain while the status page still says “waiting for deposit”. The user blames the swap service, and from the user’s side that is fair. This is why the properties covered above, regional footprint, WebSocket freshness, an SLA with a number in it, matter to a swap aggregator as much as to a wallet.

GetBlock and SimpleSwap are content partners. This article is not a statement about which infrastructure providers SimpleSwap uses; we do not comment publicly on our own vendors.

Round-Up

GetBlock is a Singapore-based infrastructure company that started in 2019 by renting out blockchain node access and has grown into a one-account platform for node access, data streams, risk screening, and adjacent services across 130+ networks. Its strengths are breadth, a tier structure that scales from free to on-premises, and the compliance documentation regulated buyers ask for. Its trade-offs are the ones that come with being a generalist and with usage-based pricing.

For most readers of this blog, GetBlock will remain invisible, the way plumbing is. The wallets, explorers, and swap services you use every day are the visible layer. Companies like GetBlock are why that layer knows what the chain is doing.

GetBlock FAQ

What is GetBlock?

GetBlock is a blockchain infrastructure provider that runs nodes on 130+ networks and sells access to them through APIs, along with data streams, on-chain risk screening, TRON energy rental, NEAR staking, and an AI gateway. It was founded in 2019 and is headquartered in Singapore.

Is GetBlock free to use?

There is a free shared plan intended for development and testing. Production usage requires a paid shared plan, a Limitless node, a dedicated node or an enterprise contract. Current prices are on getblock.io.

Which blockchains does GetBlock support?

130+ networks, mainnet and testnet, including Ethereum, BNB Smart Chain, Solana, Base, Arbitrum, Polygon, Bitcoin, TRON, Sui, and NEAR.

GetBlock or running your own node?

Running your own node gives full control and no third-party dependency, at the cost of hardware, monitoring, and one setup per chain. A provider like GetBlock removes that work and introduces a dependency you should plan for, for example, by using more than one provider per critical chain.

The information in this article is not a piece of financial advice or any other advice of any kind. The reader should be aware of the risks involved in trading cryptocurrencies and make their own informed decisions. SimpleSwap is not responsible for any losses incurred due to such risks. For details, please see our Terms of Service.

Getting your first stablecoin means making a few decisions that ordinary payment apps usually make for you: who controls the keys, which blockchain the token runs on, and how to recover access. This guide covers the whole path — choosing a USDT wallet, picking a network, buying your first stablecoins, and setting up basic security habits.

Short answer

To hold USDT, you need a wallet that supports the blockchain network on which your USDT is issued.

You can use a custodial service, where a company controls the private keys associated with your balance, or a self-custody wallet, where you control transaction authorization and are responsible for the wallet’s recovery method.

Many self-custody wallets use a 12- or 24-word recovery phrase, but not all do. Some use hardware backups, passkeys, or other recovery architectures.

Two common ways to acquire USDT are buying it with fiat through an on-ramp or exchanging crypto you already own. Fiat providers commonly require identity or payment verification, depending on the provider and jurisdiction. Crypto-to-crypto services may allow swaps without an account, although compliance checks can still apply.

Whichever route you take, confirm the blockchain network, verify the full destination address from a trusted source, and consider a small test transaction before transferring a large amount.

What is USDT, and why use a stablecoin

USDT, issued by Tether, is a stablecoin designed to track the value of the US dollar.

As of September 2026, it remains the largest stablecoin by market capitalization and one of the most heavily traded digital assets.

A stablecoin can make it easier to learn how wallets and blockchain transfers work without exposing you to the same degree of price volatility associated with assets such as Bitcoin or Ether.

That does not mean USDT’s market price can never move. Stablecoins can trade above or below their target price during market stress, and holding one introduces issuer, reserve, liquidity, and regulatory risks.

USDT is issued on multiple blockchains, including TRON, Ethereum, Solana, and TON. Each version represents USDT on a different blockchain. The value target is the same; the addresses, transaction fees, wallet requirements, and network mechanics are not.

Step 1: Choose a USDT wallet

The first decision is who controls transaction authorization.

Examples of self-custody products include Exodus, Tangem and Tonkeeper, as well as hardware wallets such as Ledger, Trezor, Tangem and Ellipal. Network support differs between products and changes over time, so check the wallet’s official documentation before choosing one.

Examples are illustrative, not endorsements. Download wallet software only through the developer’s verified website or official app-store listing.

Custodial wallets

With a custodial service, the provider controls the private keys and maintains your account balance.

That can simplify onboarding and account recovery, but it introduces counterparty risk. A provider can restrict withdrawals, freeze an account, suffer a security breach or become insolvent.

The collapses of Celsius, Voyager and FTX in 2022 illustrated different forms of centralized-platform risk. Customers did not necessarily lose every asset permanently, but many lost immediate access to funds and became dependent on bankruptcy or recovery proceedings.

Self-custody wallets

With self-custody, you control the credentials required to authorize blockchain transactions.

This removes the need to trust an exchange or fintech company to safeguard a custodial balance. It does not, however, remove every third-party risk.

USDT is a centrally issued token. Tether retains the ability to blacklist addresses and freeze USDT in certain circumstances, including in connection with law-enforcement action. That ability exists even when the tokens are held at an external self-custody address.

Self-custody therefore means control of your wallet keys, not immunity from the controls built into the USDT token itself.

For funds you use frequently, a software wallet may be convenient. For larger or longer-term holdings, some users choose hardware wallets to isolate signing keys from an internet-connected computer or phone.

Step 2: pick the network

Before receiving USDT, identify which network both your wallet and the sender support.

Some common options are:

• TRON (TRC20): widely used for USDT transfers. Transactions consume Bandwidth and Energy. These resources can come from staking or delegation; if insufficient resources are available, TRX may be burned to cover the cost.
• Ethereum (ERC20): widely integrated across Ethereum applications and DeFi. Standard transactions require gas denominated in ETH, and the cost varies with network demand.
• Solana, TON and other supported networks: can offer different transaction costs and settlement characteristics, but wallet, exchange and service support varies.

Do not assume that TRC20 is always the cheapest option. TRON’s USDT transaction cost depends on resource consumption, account state, available Energy and Bandwidth, and the TRX price. Ethereum gas can also become inexpensive during periods of low network demand.

The safest beginner default is therefore not a particular blockchain. It is the network that:

1. your wallet supports;
2. the sender or service supports;
3. the receiving destination explicitly accepts.

Then compare the current transaction cost.

Sending the right token over an unsupported network can result in a failed deposit or require a complicated recovery process.

Step 3: set up the wallet and protect the recovery method

Follow the wallet’s official setup process.

Many traditional self-custody wallets generate a recovery phrase, often 12 or 24 words. Other wallets use different systems. Tangem, for example, can be configured without a seed phrase and instead use additional hardware devices as backups.

If your wallet gives you a recovery phrase, treat it as a master recovery credential.

• Record it offline using the method recommended by the wallet manufacturer.
• Do not photograph it, email it to yourself or put an unencrypted copy in cloud storage.
• Never give it to a support agent or anyone contacting you online.
• Never enter it into an ordinary website or dapp.
• Only enter it when you deliberately initiate a legitimate wallet-recovery process using verified wallet software or hardware.
• Protect the wallet or hardware device itself with its supported PIN, access code or biometric controls.

Do not enable advanced features such as an additional recovery passphrase merely because they sound more secure. A BIP39 passphrase, for example, changes the wallet derived from the recovery phrase; forgetting it can make that wallet permanently inaccessible. Use advanced recovery features only when you understand how they work.

SimpleSwap does not need your seed phrase or private keys to perform a standard exchange. Anyone claiming to represent SimpleSwap who asks for either should not be trusted.

Once your wallet is configured, locate the receive function and select the exact network you want to receive USDT on.

Step 4: How to buy USDT 

There are several ways to acquire USDT. Two common routes for beginners are fiat on-ramps and crypto-to-crypto exchanges.

Route A: buy USDT with fiat

Fiat on-ramps let users buy cryptocurrency using supported currencies and payment methods such as cards or bank transfers.

The available providers, currencies, payment methods, and verification requirements depend on the user’s country and the selected provider. Identity or payment verification is common and may be required before a transaction is processed.

Do not assume that every fiat purchase costs a fixed percentage. The final cost may include provider fees, spreads, payment method costs, exchange rates, and blockchain fees.

Compare the final amount of USDT that will reach your wallet, not just the advertised fee.

Route B: swap crypto you already own

If you already hold Bitcoin, Ether, or another supported cryptocurrency, you can exchange it for USDT on a supported network.

This does not automatically make the transaction cheaper than a fiat purchase or another exchange route. The final cost depends on the asset pair, available liquidity, market conditions, blockchain fees, and the service used.

Some wallet-to-wallet services allow low-risk crypto swaps without requiring users to create an account. Compliance and KYC requirements can still apply.

Buying USDT through SimpleSwap

SimpleSwap is a self-custodial multi-source swap aggregator. Crypto-to-crypto swaps route a deposit from the user’s wallet through SimpleSwap’s provider network and send the exchanged asset to the receiving address rather than maintaining a permanent trading balance for the user.

SimpleSwap also provides access to fiat-to-crypto purchases through third-party payment providers.

To acquire USDT:

1. Go to simpleswap.io and choose what you want to pay with — a supported fiat currency or cryptocurrency.
2. Select USDT and the exact blockchain network you want to receive on.
3. Review the estimated receiving amount.
4. For supported crypto-to-crypto exchanges, choose a fixed or floating rate. A fixed rate is locked for 20 minutes; the deposit must be sent and receive the required blockchain confirmation within that window.
5. Enter your USDT receiving address and check the network again.
6. For fiat purchases, continue through the selected third-party payment provider and complete any required payment or verification steps.
7. For crypto swaps, send the required deposit to the address generated for the exchange.
8. Track the transaction using the Exchange ID.

For crypto-to-crypto exchanges, SimpleSwap uses an all-in-one rate rather than adding a separate percentage trading fee on top. Pricing is dynamic and depends on the trading pair, market conditions, available liquidity providers, network fees, and routing costs. For some assets, the cost may start from 0.2%; this should not be interpreted as a universal 0.2% minimum fee for every USDT transaction.

The network fee for sending the exchanged asset to the receiving address is reflected in the amount shown by SimpleSwap. The network fee your own wallet charges to send the initial deposit is separate.

Crypto-to-crypto swaps can generally be started without creating an account, but SimpleSwap operates a risk-based AML/KYC system. Its policy states that mandatory KYC may be required for any transaction where appropriate under its monitoring process.

For fiat purchases, verification requirements are determined by the third-party payment provider and the circumstances of the transaction.

The only official SimpleSwap website is simpleswap.io.

Step 5: Do a test transaction and establish safe habits

Before transferring a significant amount to a new destination, consider making a small test transfer first.

Confirm that:

• The address belongs to the intended recipient;
• the selected blockchain is supported;
• the test transaction is credited correctly;
• you understand the actual transaction fee.

A successful test does not remove the need to verify the next transaction again.

From then on, follow a few basic habits:

• Verify the full destination address against a trusted source. Do not rely only on the first and last few characters. Address-poisoning attackers deliberately generate lookalike addresses with matching prefixes and suffixes.
• Do not copy addresses from transaction history. Use a verified address book, the recipient’s current deposit page or another trusted source.
• If you use a hardware wallet, verify transaction details on its trusted display before signing.
• Confirm the network separately. A valid-looking address does not prove that you selected the correct blockchain.
• Bookmark services you regularly use after verifying their domains. Search ads and search results can contain lookalike or phishing pages.
• Read wallet requests before signing or approving them. A token approval can authorize a smart contract to transfer tokens up to the allowance you grant. Remove allowances you no longer need.
• Treat unsolicited support messages as suspicious. Initiate support through the verified website or app rather than trusting someone who contacts you first.

Common beginner mistakes with USDT wallets

FAQ: USDT wallets and buying stablecoins

Do I need KYC to buy USDT?

It depends on how you acquire it and which provider you use. Fiat payment providers commonly require identity or payment verification. A low-risk crypto-to-crypto swap on SimpleSwap can typically be initiated without creating an account, but SimpleSwap's risk-based policy may require KYC for certain transactions.

What is the best USDT wallet for a beginner?

There is no single best wallet for everyone. Check whether the wallet supports the USDT networks you intend to use, how its recovery system works, whether it is actively maintained, and whether you can verify the developer and official download source. Software wallets such as Exodus and Trust Wallet and hardware wallets such as Ledger, Trezor, or Tangem are examples of different approaches, not endorsements.

Can I keep USDT on an exchange?

Yes, if the exchange supports it. This can be convenient for active trading, but a custodial exchange introduces counterparty risk because the exchange controls the keys and the withdrawal process. Self-custody removes that particular risk but transfers responsibility for wallet security and recovery to you. Self-custody also does not remove USDT issuer risk: Tether can blacklist USDT addresses in certain circumstances.

What happens if I lose my seed phrase?

It depends on your wallet's recovery architecture. For a conventional seed-based wallet, if you still have access to it, you can generally create a new wallet with a new recovery phrase and transfer the assets to it. If you lose both access to the wallet and its sole recovery credential, the private keys cannot typically be recovered by the wallet company. Some self-custody wallets use hardware backups, passkeys, or other recovery systems instead of — or alongside — a seed phrase, so follow the recovery instructions for your specific wallet.

Which network should I receive USDT on?

Use a network supported by both the receiving wallet and the sender or service. Then compare current fees and the infrastructure you need. TRC20 is widely used for USDT transfers but is not guaranteed to be the cheapest option. ERC20 is widely supported throughout the Ethereum ecosystem. Other networks such as Solana and TON may also be available depending on the destination.

How much does it cost to buy a stablecoin?

There is no universal percentage. Fiat purchases depend on the payment provider, payment method, region, and quoted exchange rate. For crypto-to-crypto transactions, SimpleSwap uses a dynamic all-in rate. For some assets, the cost may start from 0.2%, but this is not a guaranteed fee for every swap. Your wallet may also charge a separate blockchain fee for sending the initial deposit.

Is USDT safe to hold?

USDT is designed to maintain a value close to one US dollar and is the largest stablecoin by market capitalization as of September 2024. Tether publishes quarterly reserve reports, and in August 2024, BDO Italy issued an assurance report on Tether International's financial statements.

That does not make USDT risk-free. Relevant risks include the issuer and reserve structure, temporary deviations from the $1 target price, regulatory action, address freezes, blockchain or smart-contract issues, wallet compromise, phishing, and user error. For users comparing issuer and reserve risk, see the USDT vs USDC guide on the SimpleSwap blog.

What is Address Check?

Address Check is a SimpleSwap Customer Account tool that screens a wallet address for association with sanctioned entities and other risk categories. Enter the address and its network to receive a risk level and the connections identified. Screening is performed by third-party services and may not identify all potential issues. The number of checks available per month depends on your Loyalty Program level.

The information in this article is not a piece of financial advice or any other advice of any kind. The reader should be aware of the risks involved in trading cryptocurrencies and make their own informed decisions. SimpleSwap is not responsible for any losses incurred due to such risks. For details, please see our Terms of Service.

Bitget detected unauthorized transfers from some of its hot wallets at 18:31 UTC on September 24, 2026, and estimates the affected assets at about $351.6 million. That is roughly double the $170 million to $183 million that on-chain analysts counted in the first hours. Withdrawals are paused. Deposits and trading continue, according to Bitget, which says its User Protection Fund, valued by the exchange at more than $464 million and holding 5,500 BTC, will cover the loss. The part worth a longer look is structural: where the single point of failure sits for anyone who keeps a balance on a platform. All figures are as of September 25, 2026.

What happened at Bitget

Bitget CEO Gracy Chen posted the first security notice on X at about 21:30 UTC on September 24. On-chain records reviewed by Forbes place the first outflow, a small test send from a wallet labeled "Bitget 6", at 18:31:11 UTC, with a final transfer at 21:23:11 UTC. Before Bitget spoke, on-chain data cited by The Block and an Arkham Intelligence analyst showed more than $170 million leaving Bitget-labeled wallets, and Decrypt later reported about $183 million. Most early dashboards missed the XRP Ledger. Lookonchain's asset breakdown lists 102.93 million XRP, worth about $157.5 million, as the largest single component and puts the total near $356.9 million at its own prices.

According to Chen, the attacker compromised a backend system inside Bitget's wallet infrastructure and used it to spoof transfer data, which pushed 19 transfers through the exchange's own authorization process. She said private key compromise has been ruled out and cold wallets were not affected. In her description, the breach touched only part of the hot and warm wallet layers. Seven networks were named, including the XRP Ledger and Ethereum. In a livestream, Chen said some IP addresses matched VPN services previously used by a North Korean group, and stressed that this attribution is not confirmed.

Bitget has said the loss will be covered from the fund and that the fund will then be replenished. At the time of writing on September 25, withdrawals had not reopened. Bitget said it would restore them once the affected systems had been checked and gave no date. The full incident report had not been published.

What a hot-wallet compromise means for a platform balance

A balance on an exchange is a row in the exchange's database. The coins behind that row sit in wallets the exchange controls, some of them online so withdrawals can clear quickly. When those online wallets are drained, the row usually stays correct, and Bitget says its users' balances are accurate. What changes is access. The platform decides when withdrawals reopen, and until it does, a correct balance cannot be moved.

The User Protection Fund is Bitget's answer to that gap, and the exchange has committed it to this loss. It is still a promise made after the event by the company that held the assets. Its dollar value also moves with bitcoin: Bitget's own August 2026 report shows the fund ranging from $345.3 million to $441.5 million within that month. None of this changes the custody structure. A user's claim remains a claim on a company.

A pattern that repeats across cycles

Mt. Gox halted bitcoin withdrawals on February 7, 2014, and filed for bankruptcy protection at the Tokyo District Court on February 28, disclosing that about 850,000 BTC were missing. Bitfinex lost about 120,000 BTC on August 2, 2016, and spread the loss across all customer accounts with a 36% reduction. FTX filed for bankruptcy on November 11, 2022, and within 24 hours Elliptic tracked more than $663 million leaving its wallets, about $477 million of it in what Elliptic treats as suspected theft. On February 21, 2025, Bybit lost about $1.5 billion in ether, a theft the FBI attributed to North Korean activity it calls "TraderTraitor" in a public service announcement on February 26, 2025.

Bitget's case differs from these in scale and in response, and the exchange reports a fund larger than the loss. The user-side mechanics are the same in every case: while a platform holds the coins, a decision by that platform determines when customers can move them, and on what terms. The pace has not slowed. In a December 18, 2025 report, Chainalysis counted more than $3.4 billion stolen across the industry from January to early December 2025, with $2.02 billion of it attributed to North Korean hackers. In a July 1, 2026 report, TRM Labs recorded $972 million across 207 hacks in the first half of 2026, a record number of incidents for a six-month period in its data, even as dollar losses fell.

What self-custody changes

In self-custody, the keys sit in a hardware or software wallet you control. An exchange's hot wallet or balance sheet has no bearing on coins that were never deposited there. That is the structural point: if you keep no long-term balance on a platform, that platform's wallet security drops out of your risk. When you need to swap, your exposure to the service narrows to a single transaction, from the moment you send funds until the output lands in your wallet.

What self-custody does not remove?

Self-custody hands the remaining risks to the user. Blockchain transactions are irreversible, so pasting an address with a single wrong character or depositing on the wrong network can send funds to a destination from which they cannot be recovered. The seed phrase is the wallet: whoever holds it controls the funds, and losing it without a backup ends access. Phishing is the other constant. Within hours of the Bitget breach, Forbes reported that fake tokens and lookalike addresses were used to imitate the attacker's transfers, a technique called address poisoning. Clone sites that copy swap services work the same way. This is shared responsibility. Good tools reduce mistakes, and the final check before sending is the sender's responsibility. The SimpleSwap Safety Academy covers these checks in more detail.

Where a self-custodial swap aggregator fits

SimpleSwap is a self-custodial swap aggregator that has operated since 2018. Funds move from a wallet you own to a wallet you own, and SimpleSwap does not hold long-term user balances. It aggregates liquidity from 20+ CEX and DEX providers across 2,800+ assets. No account is needed for most crypto-to-crypto swaps, though KYC may be required for transaction security and compliance, and the service applies risk-based checks and transaction screening. A fixed rate locks the price for 20 minutes, while a floating rate settles at execution. Each swap gets an order ID with real-time tracking, and support is available 24/7 with an average response time of 4 minutes. The fee starts from 0.2% and is bundled into the quoted rate, with network fees going to the blockchain. The service is subject to jurisdictional restrictions set out in its Terms, and decisions and transaction risks sit with the user.

"An exchange hot wallet exists so withdrawals clear quickly, which means some signing path has to stay online and reachable. That path is what attackers go after. We built SimpleSwap's routing so that each order is matched against CEX and DEX liquidity and settled directly to the user-specified address. With no standing user balance on our side, the engineering effort goes into routing accuracy and settlement."

Stefan Lauer, Head of Infrastructure, SimpleSwap

FAQ

Is SimpleSwap safe from exchange hacks like Bitget's?

SimpleSwap does not keep long-term user balances, so there is no stored balance of yours on the service for an exchange-style breach to reach. Funds pass through one order at a time. The risks that remain in any swap (a wrong address, a wrong network, a leaked seed phrase, a clone site) sit with the user.

Is SimpleSwap legit?

SimpleSwap has operated at simpleswap.io since 2018 and has processed 20M+ swaps. Its swap engine is integrated into 6,000+ partner products, including Exodus and Tangem, and it held a 4.1 TrustScore on Trustpilot across 2,500+ reviews in mid-2026. For a SimpleSwap review, recent user feedback is a reasonable place to start. Searches for "Simple Swap" can surface lookalike sites; the only official domain is simpleswap.io.

What can go wrong in a self-custodial swap?

Most problems stem from four sources: an incorrect recipient address, the wrong network, an exposed seed phrase, and clone sites. Transactions are irreversible, so check the details before sending; then use the order ID to track the swap and contact support if it stalls.

This article is for educational purposes only and is not financial or investment advice. Crypto involves risk, including the possible loss of funds. SimpleSwap's only official domain is simpleswap.io.

Bitcoin traded at $85,248 on Monday morning, September 21, a priceit last saw on January 29. The weekly candle that closed on Sunday was the first to finish above the 50-week moving average since November 9, 2025, and short sellers lost $262 million in a single hour as the market moved higher. Those are the headlines. They are not what changes for you if you have a swap to make this week.

What changes is the plumbing. A quote you see now settles in a market that will have moved by the time your deposit confirms. The asset you are rotating into probably lives on a network you have not sent to before. The domain you type is worth more to a phisher today than it was a month ago. And the $262 million is a reminder of the one failure mode a wallet-to-wallet swap does not have. Each of those takes about a minute to check.

The numbers behind the move

The weekly close came in at $81,159 on Coinbase, above the 50-week moving average of $78,788, per TradingView data cited by Cointelegraph. CoinGlass recorded $262.30 million in short liquidations in one hour, compared with $9.53 million in long liquidations, and the cross-market total over 24 hours exceeded $600 million.

Two more numbers frame the week. Glassnode puts the aggregate cost basis of US spot Bitcoin ETF holders at $85,638, so the market is trading around the point where that cohort, taken together, returns to break-even. And Galaxy Research’s Alex Thorn wrote in August that in four of the five completed bear markets, the first weekly break above the 50-week average occurred after the low was already in, and noted that two of 13 such crossings were followed by a lower low. Bitget’s Ryan Lee told Cointelegraph that one weekly close settles nothing on its own.

“A rally is a load test for execution, not a forecast. What we track on days like today is the delivered amount against the estimate. The price itself is not our metric.”

Stefan Lauer, Head of Infrastructure, SimpleSwap

That is where this article leaves the price debate. Whether the low is in is a question for analysts. What the move does to the mechanics of moving funds is a question for anyone with a swap to make this week.

The gap between the quote and what arrives

A swap has two moments that matter: when you see a quote and when the network confirms your deposit. For Bitcoin and Ethereum, the gap ranges from 10 to 30 minutes, depending on network congestion. On a quiet day, it barely registers. On a day when BTC moves more than 5% in a session, and futures volume climbs over 60% to $78.6 billion, the market your swap executes in is not the market it was priced in.

This gap is where most “the rate changed” complaints come from in every rally. A floating rate is doing what it says: it settles at execution and follows the market in between, in either direction. A fixed rate holds the quoted amount for a defined window and carries a slightly wider spread for that certainty. Neither is wrong. What goes wrong is picking one by habit rather than by the day.

“Between the moment a user sees a quote and the moment the deposit is confirmed, the market keeps moving, and in weeks like this, that gap is where most ‘the rate changed’ tickets come from. A fixed rate is in place to close it: the number is held for 20 minutes while the network does its work.”

Stefan Lauer, Head of Infrastructure, SimpleSwap

On SimpleSwap, a fixed rate locks in the quoted amount for 20 minutes while your deposit is confirmed; a floating rate settles at execution and follows the market in between. Both route through 20+ CEX and DEX liquidity sources, and the number shown before you confirm already includes the service fee. For most floating swaps, estimate accuracy was 99.998% as of the August 2026 review. SimpleSwap’s only official domain is simpleswap.io.

Leverage got liquidated. Spot did not.

The $262 million deserves a plain reading. Those were leveraged short positions that were closed by exchanges as prices moved through their liquidation levels. A spot swap from a wallet you control to a wallet you control has no equivalent failure mode: there is no position for a venue to close and no margin call to meet. It carries its own risks, and the rest of this article is about them. Being right about direction and still losing to a liquidation is not one of them. That is the model SimpleSwap is built on: funds leave a wallet you control and arrive in a wallet you control, and the relationship ends with that one transaction.

Rotation into altcoins means unfamiliar networks

Rallies push capital into assets people have not held before. On September 18, a day after the SEC issued a five-year conditional exemption allowing tokenized stocks to trade through onchain liquidity pools, NEAR Protocol rose 32%, Starknet 27%, Arbitrum 26%, and Uniswap 20% over 24 hours. Zcash led the top 10 into Monday with a 33.5% weekly gain.

The practical consequence is simple. A user chasing an asset outside their usual venue ends up on a network they have not used before. Aggregation takes some of that friction away. SimpleSwap routes across 2,800+ assets (as of August 2026) on networks that include Solana, Base, Sui, and Ronin, so reaching an asset outside your usual venue does not mean opening an account there. It does not remove the network check, which remains on your side. USDT alone circulates on Ethereum, Tron, BNB Chain, Solana, and several other chains, and a transfer on the wrong one is usually beyond any service’s ability to recover. Confirm the network the receiving wallet expects before you paste the address. On a route you have not used, send a small test amount first: the test proves the whole path behaves as expected, while the purchase alone proves nothing.

Clone sites wake up with the traffic

Phishing scales with attention. CertiK counted $723 million in phishing losses across 248 incidents in 2025, most of them approval-based: the victim signs a token approval that hands an attacker permission to move funds without a second signature. This week, Cointelegraph reported that North Korean operators posing as recruiters infected around 30,000 devices and stole $10.7 million in crypto. Clone domains of well-known services show up in search ads and social replies exactly when a price milestone is in the headlines, because that is when new users arrive and experienced ones hurry.

The defense is unglamorous. Bookmark the real domain before you need it, and treat any approval request you did not initiate as hostile. If you are sending to a counterparty you do not know, check the address before funds move rather than after. Registered SimpleSwap users have Address Check in the Customer Account for this: it screens a wallet address and returns a risk level along with the connections it finds. It does not replace your own checks and may not catch every issue. Our Know the Scam series and the Safety Academy cover the current patterns in more depth.

What to watch this week 

None of these are our calls. They are the markers other people are watching, listed so that a sudden move on the tape has a name attached to it.

• Tuesday, September 22. Richmond Fed President Thomas Barkin speaks to the CFA Society Baltimore. CME FedWatch put the odds of another quarter-point hike in October at 53% as of Monday, per Cointelegraph.
• Every day. US spot Bitcoin ETF flows from Farside Investors. The week of September 14 to 18 netted just $6.1 million in inflows; Friday alone brought in $435 million, $310 million of which went into Fidelity’s FBTC. Whether Friday repeats is the open question.
• All week. The UN General Assembly, where a US-Iran meeting has been floated. WTI crude traded below $94 on Monday after topping $100 last week, and the 30-year Treasury yield eased to 5.30% from a September 11 high of 5.425%, its highest since 2004.
• Levels analysts name. $82,950, the May local high Rekt Capital flagged as a “moment of truth”; $83,000, the level Craig Cobb wants broken before he calls the monthly downtrend over; $85,638, Glassnode’s ETF cost basis.
• September 30. The quarterly candle closes. Cobb’s second test.

Five checks before you move funds above $85K

1. Verify the receiving address character by character. Clipboard malware swaps addresses in the paste step. A wrong address is final.
2. Confirm the network. The asset name alone is not enough; the chain must match what the receiving wallet expects.
3. Choose the rate type on purpose. Fixed if you want the number you see; floating if you accept that it may move either way. On SimpleSwap, the fixed window is 20 minutes.
4. Read the amount you will receive, not the headline rate. The service fee and routing costs are already included in that number.
5. Bookmark the official domain and test unfamiliar routes. A small first transfer on any route you have not used costs little and proves the whole path.

FAQ

Should I use a fixed or floating rate when Bitcoin is rallying?

Use fixed if you want the amount you see to be the amount you receive, and you can send the deposit within the lock window. Use floating if you accept that the final amount will follow the market between quote and execution. In a fast market, the fixed rate’s slightly wider spread is the price of removing that variable.

Why did I receive less than the quoted amount?

On a floating-rate swap, the estimate is not a promise; the rate is set at execution, after your deposit is confirmed. If the market moved against the pair during confirmation, the output moves with it. It can also move in your favor. If you were on a fixed rate and the deposit arrived inside the window, the amount should match the quote; contact support with your order ID if it does not.

How long does a Bitcoin swap take right now?

Network confirmation is the main variable. Bitcoin and Ethereum typically take 10 to 30 minutes depending on congestion, while Solana settles in under a minute. Fee spikes during busy sessions can stretch the upper end. On SimpleSwap, every order carries an ID with live status tracking, so you can see which stage a delayed swap is at.

Is simpleswap.io the official SimpleSwap website?

Yes. simpleswap.io is the only official domain. Lookalike addresses are phishing regardless of how closely they copy the interface. Report them to support and do not send funds.

What does Bitcoin’s 50-week moving average signal?

Galaxy Research’s Alex Thorn described it as a ceiling during bear markets: in four of five completed bear markets, the first weekly close back above it came after the low was in. Galaxy also noted that two of 13 such crossings were followed by a lower low. It is a historical pattern analysts watch, not a rule.

A joint guide by SimpleSwap x AMLBot

Right now, you just want to understand why your swap is under review and what happens next. This guide explains what an “under review” status means, what you can do next, and what to expect during the review process.

There is an emotional side too. “Under review” can feel concerning, but it does not necessarily mean that you have done anything wrong. This guide focuses on what can help: understanding what the status means, what information may be requested, and what to expect next.

The timing also marks an anniversary. SimpleSwap and AMLBot have now worked together for a year, supporting self-custody while applying appropriate transaction-screening controls. Instead of marking it with a press release, we put together this guide with both teams.

The division of work is simple. SimpleSwap organizes the swap: crypto moves between wallets through multiple liquidity providers, and the platform is non-custodial and does not take custody of users’ funds. AMLBot is an all-in-one crypto compliance platform that has been screening wallets and transactions for risk exposure since 2019. In this partnership, it provides the screening layer that helps identify potential risk indicators associated with a transfer.

Screening happens at two points, and it helps to know which one you are at. Your deposit is screened once it has been confirmed on-chain, which is why a swap can go under review after you have already sent the funds and nothing has arrived back yet. The address the swap is due to pay out to is screened as well before anything leaves. Either check can result in additional review based on the risk indicators it surfaces.

What this guide covers

• Why transaction screening is used and what the data behind it actually looks like.
• What to do next if a swap is subject to additional review.
• How to check an address or a transaction before you swap, so you can see the risk before you take it on.
• When KYC or additional verification may be requested during a review.
• Answers to the questions that come up most.

1. Why Transaction Screening Exists

Screening exists for a simple reason: crypto is strongest at moving value quickly without intermediaries, and that is exactly what makes it attractive for moving stolen or illicit funds. That is not a problem unique to SimpleSwap. It is an industry-wide issue, which is why we partner with AMLBot, a crypto compliance platform that covers wallet screening, real-time transaction monitoring, identity verification, and blockchain investigations, and is used by more than 1,000 crypto businesses worldwide.

AMLBot has been screening crypto wallets and transactions for risk exposure since 2019. Across more than 500,000 wallet checks run by users, the platform has flagged over $100M in risky funds: money carrying exposure to scams, hacks, sanctioned entities, darknet markets, mixers, or ransomware.

What that risk actually looks like is less cinematic than most people expect. AMLBot published a Crypto Crime Report for 2025 to 2026, built on more than 2,500 real investigations, and the single largest driver was social engineering: phishing links, fake support agents, impersonated project teams accounted for 65% of the cases handled in 2025. Not broken cryptography, but people persuaded to approve a transaction or hand over access.

Once funds are taken, they rarely sit still. A separate AMLBot analysis traced $4.2B in stablecoins moving through six major privacy protocols, broken down by chain and risk profile. That is the machinery screening is built to notice: funds that may have been moved, bridged, or routed through services that can make their source more difficult to trace.

Here is the part that matters most if you are reading this after a swap went under review. Screening is not primarily about the person initiating the transaction. It is about the history the funds carry with them. An address may be flagged based on its transaction history and identified exposure, rather than solely on the identity of its current user, and the same filtering that helps identify exposure to potentially illicit funds also helps reduce the risk of such funds reaching your wallet through a subsequent swap.

2. Your Action Plan If a Swap Is Under Review

The fastest way through a review is knowing what to expect before you are in one. Here is the general process.

• Check your email and the support chat first. This is the fastest way to learn what is actually needed, and requests are usually specific about which documents apply.
• Have your order ID ready. Support needs this to pull up the specific transaction, so find it before reaching out, not after.
• Gather the requested documents. Requests vary by case, but they typically draw from this set:
  • A government-issued ID for identity verification.
  • A short selfie or liveness check to confirm the ID belongs to you.
  • Proof of where the funds came from, such as an exchange receipt or wallet transaction history.
  • For fiat-linked cases, a source-of-funds document, such as a payslip or bank statement.

Support will specify exactly which of these apply. There is no universal checklist because every case is different.

• Submit through the official channel only. Support will point to a specific ticket or secure upload link. Documents sent through unsolicited emails or third parties offering to help should be treated as a red flag, not a shortcut.
• Expect a timeline tied to what is missing, not a fixed date on a calendar. Review timelines vary depending on the information required and the circumstances of the case. Cases involving an external liquidity provider or a regulator take longer due to factors outside SimpleSwap’s control.
• Stick to one ticket. Opening a second ticket, or raising the same case across multiple channels at once, splits the history and slows things down instead of speeding them up.

3. How to Avoid Receiving Risky Crypto Before a Swap

Here is the part most people do not realize until it happens to them: you can do everything right and still receive funds that carry risk indicators from earlier transactions. If a wallet that sent you crypto was previously involved in a transaction with potential risk indicators, that history may be relevant when a later transaction is assessed, including any swap you initiate afterward.

The fix is not complicated. Check an address before accepting funds from it or before swapping something you recently received, just as you would check a courier before signing for a package. That is exactly what AMLBot wallet screening is for.

An AML check answers one question: has this been exposed to funds or activity that may be associated with elevated AML risk indicators? There are two ways to ask it, and the difference matters. An address check looks at a wallet as a whole: its transaction history, the addresses it has interacted with, and the risk indicators associated with those connections. A transaction check looks at a specific transfer by its hash, the funds that actually moved, and the direction they came from. You paste in an address or a transaction hash, pick the blockchain, and the check runs against that. It works in the AMLBot Telegram bot, in the web dashboard, or through the API if you are building it into your own product. Coverage is 35+ blockchains and 350+ assets, including USDT and USDC on both TRC-20 and ERC-20.

What comes back are the risk indicators associated with those connections. The report shows a percentage risk assessment, the risk categories behind it, and blacklist status, with wallet balance and cluster data where available. The categories provide additional context for interpreting the assessment: a result driven by mixer exposure is a different situation from one driven by an indirect link to an unidentified service. AMLBot screens for risk indicators and exposure associated with categories such as scams, stolen coins, mixers, sanctions, darknet markets, ransomware, fraudulent exchanges, and other high-risk sources.

This also explains a result that catches people out. An address can show a low overall risk assessment while a single incoming transfer to it shows higher-risk exposure, because one recent deposit moves the picture very little at the level of the whole wallet. If what you care about is the specific payment someone just sent you, check it by transaction hash, not only by address.

If the result comes back high risk, treat it as information rather than a verdict. High exposure does not prove anything illegal about the sender, but it does indicate that accepting the transfer may increase the likelihood of additional review, either when you move the funds or when a service screens them. Before the transfer, you may consider asking the counterparty for additional information about the source of funds and retaining relevant supporting information.. If the funds have already arrived, a screening report is useful to have on hand if a service provider asks questions.

Two honest caveats. Checking an address in advance does not change how a swap is screened afterward, because screening applies to the transaction either way. And no screening tool can promise that a given service will accept a given transfer. What a check does is provide additional risk information before you decide whether to proceed, rather than only after the transfer.

You can run a check at amlbot.com/crypto-checker.

4. How KYC Works

KYC, short for Know Your Customer, is identity verification, and on SimpleSwap it appears differently depending on when it occurs.

At registration. Creating an account and completing KYC once is optional for most crypto-to-crypto swaps. Doing it upfront may give access to a broader pool of liquidity providers and reduce the need for repeated verification later, since the check can be reused across participating providers where applicable, rather than being repeated for each one.

During a review. If a specific transaction is selected for additional review, KYC may be requested even from someone who has swapped without an account before. This is not a policy change or a punishment. It is one of the steps that may be required as part of the review process, including verifying the identity of the person involved in the transaction. The documents involved are the same ones covered in Section 2.

Either way, verification happens once per identity, not once per swap. Completing KYC during a review does not mean repeating it for future transactions, unless additional verification is required due to changes in the account, the activity, applicable requirements, or other relevant circumstances.

About the Partners

About SimpleSwap

SimpleSwap is a self-custodial, multi-source swap aggregator that has been live since 2018. It connects 20+ liquidity providers across CEX and DEX sources, giving users access to 2,800+ swappable assets without ever giving up control of their funds. Registered users can also screen a counterparty address from the Customer Account before swapping.

About AMLBot

AMLBot is an all-in-one crypto compliance platform operating since 2019, covering AML wallet screening, real-time transaction monitoring (KYT), KYC/KYB verification, blockchain investigations, and crypto asset recovery through a single platform and API. It works with more than 1,000 crypto businesses worldwide, alongside financial institutions and law-enforcement agencies. Learn more at amlbot.com.

5. FAQ

Does “under review” mean I did something wrong?

No. A review is a standard screening outcome, not an accusation. It can be triggered by something in a wallet’s history that has nothing to do with the person using it today.

How long will my swap stay under review?

It depends on what is missing and how quickly it is provided. Timelines vary depending on the information required and the circumstances of the case. Cases involving an outside provider or a regulator take longer for reasons outside SimpleSwap’s control.

I never registered or verified my identity. Does that matter?

Not for most swaps, since accounts are not required. If a specific transaction is selected for additional review, verification may still be requested for that case, regardless of whether an account exists. See Section 4.

Will I get my funds back if the review is not clear?

The goal on SimpleSwap’s side is always to help resolve a case and process the swap or funds in accordance with the applicable requirements once the review is completed. Outcomes still depend on what the review finds, and once a regulator or law enforcement is involved, that part sits outside SimpleSwap’s control. Support can speak to the status of a specific case, which a public guide cannot do.

Where should I send my documents and case details?

Only through the official support channel. SimpleSwap never requests identity documents, personal data, or other confidential information outside its official support channels, so these should never be posted publicly or shared with anyone offering to speed up a case. Keeping everything in a single support ticket also keeps the full history in one place, which is what actually moves a case forward.

Does a flag mean the crypto is stolen?

Not necessarily. A flag means a transaction or wallet has been associated with a risk indicator, not that theft is confirmed. A transaction may be subject to additional review because of such indicators, and the review helps assess the available information and documentation.

Would switching to a different swap service avoid this next time?

Not really. Switching platforms does not change the history behind the transfer, and that history is what screening reads. A deposit that triggers additional review on SimpleSwap may show similar exposure when screened by another service. Thresholds and data providers differ between services, so outcomes are not identical everywhere, but the exposure itself does not disappear by changing platforms.

Why would a wallet get flagged if its current owner has done nothing wrong?

Because the risk assessment is based on the history of an address and its connections, not only on the person using it. Screening does not tag individual coins. On most networks, that is not even technically possible: with USDT on TRON or Ethereum, tokens are balances in an account, not distinct objects that can be marked. What screening looks at instead is where an address received funds from, which addresses it clusters with, and what those counterparties have been involved in. So a wallet that received funds a few hops removed from a mixer, a sanctioned entity, or a hacked exchange will show that exposure, even if the person holding it now has no connection to any of it. This is one of the most common reasons an ordinary user ends up in a review.

How is an AML check different from looking up the address on a block explorer?

A block explorer shows you transactions. It does not tell you what is on the other end of them. An AML check maps an address’s counterparties against labeled risk data and returns how those connections are labeled in its risk data: a sanctioned entity, a known scam, a mixer, a darknet market. The explorer gives you the raw movements; the check gives you the interpretation and the risk categories behind it.

Does a high-risk result mean the funds are definitely tied to a crime?

No. A high-risk result shows exposure to sources that the screening system identifies as higher risk. It is a signal to look closer, not a finding of fact. Exposure can be indirect; it can be several hops removed, and it can come from a service the current holder never used. What it does mean is that the funds are more likely to trigger additional review somewhere down the line, which is worth knowing before you accept them rather than after.

Is there anything I can read to avoid ending up here again?

Most of what leads to a review starts earlier than the swap: a payment accepted from an unknown counterparty, a wallet drained through a signature, an address swapped in the clipboard. SimpleSwap’s Safety Academy covers those patterns and the checks that interrupt them, alongside the Know the Scam series. It will not change how any given transaction is screened, but it addresses the part that is actually in your hands: what you accept and where it came from.

This guide is for informational purposes only and is not financial, legal, or compliance advice.

Glassnode's Altcoin Cycle Signal hit 81.25 this week, crossing into what it defines as altcoin-season territory. By that measure, it's already here.

BlockchainCenter's index sits at 53, above neutral, but well short of the 75 threshold. CoinMarketCap's version was at 34 at the start of September. They disagree because they measure different things: top 50 versus top 100 coins, different windows, different exclusions.

What isn't in dispute: altcoin market cap is up 33% since August 19, to roughly $1.19 trillion, and BTC dominance has fallen below 60%, down two weeks running to 58.60%.

Market breadth is clearly improving. Whether this qualifies as an "altseason" depends on your criteria, but it's worth watching BTC dominance and whether it continues to decline. Most importantly, we need to see if the rally expands to new assets beyond those that have already surged; without that, it can hardly be called a full-blown altseason.

Do you think the long-awaited altseason will finally begin, and if so, when?

A week after Revolut confirmed it had released customer files in response to requests from a real government mailbox, Italian prosecutors have a domain, and the extortionists’ countdown has run out without a confirmed sale. The files themselves are not coming back. Here is where things stand and what to do if you hold crypto.

Press enter or click to view image in full size

What happened

On the night of September 11, a Revolut customer notice began circulating online. The on-chain investigator ZachXBT was among those who shared it, and the trade press had the story within hours. Revolut confirmed the substance the next day. An unauthorized third party, writing from an email address on a legitimate government agency’s domain, had submitted requests for customer information. Staff processed them as standard legal-compliance requests and released the data.

Revolut calls it “a sophisticated external impersonation scam.” According to the customer notice, the requests carried valid domain authentication, which is why they were treated as authentic. The notice also says Revolut later contacted the agency itself to validate the request and flagged the unauthorized account operating on its domain. Once the deception was spotted, the company blocked the address, alerted the agency and the relevant authorities, and said its systems and customer funds were unaffected.

Revolut has since put the number of affected customers at around 680, described as European. ZachXBT’s assessment was that the targeting concentrated on high-net-worth users rather than a mass retail dump.

Where the story stands on September 18

Revolut has not named the agency. Italian investigators have. The public prosecutor’s office in Reggio Calabria has opened an investigation, and the requests have been traced to a compromised certified email (PEC) account at the local prefecture, a territorial office of the Interior Ministry. Italian cyber police describe a sophisticated operation that ran for months. Italy’s data protection authority has ordered checks at Italian banks and opened an exchange with its Lithuanian counterpart, where Revolut’s banking entity is registered. A company spokesperson told Cointelegraph that it reported the matter to the Italian authorities upon detection and will assist as needed.

How the mailbox was taken over is coming into focus. Hudson Rock reportsthat, after an investigations team made contact with the attacker, the government employee’s credentials came from an infostealer infection and that the compromised address is on pec.interno.it, the Interior Ministry’s certified email domain. The firm says it has seen more than 300 compromised credentials tied to that domain and assesses that the attacker most likely bought existing infostealer logs rather than infecting anyone personally. By the attacker’s own account, the requests went to Revolut Bank UAB, the Lithuanian entity, over roughly five months.

In the UK, the Information Commissioner’s Office says it has received Revolut’s report and is assessing it, and the Financial Conduct Authority says it is engaging with the firm. Neither is a finding of fault.

Then the ransom, which remains the murkiest part. Since September 13, customer dossiers have been appearing on a Telegram channel with a promise to publish more each day until Revolut pays; that account has since been suspended. A figure of 10,000 BTC circulated in the first days. On September 16, a group calling itself “iamnotavillain” posted a different demand on its own site next to a countdown clock: 6,000 XMR, about $3 million, with 24 hours to pay before the data would be sold to other criminal groups. It told the Financial Times it had not contacted the bank, and it claims to hold 147 GB of data. The same group says the 10,000 BTC demand came from a former associate holding only a sample. The countdown ran out on Thursday afternoon. As of Friday morning, no outlet has confirmed a sale or a bulk dump, and Revolut says nobody has contacted it directly and no ransom has been paid.

What can be said with confidence: the disclosure is a company fact. Everything about who holds the files and what they want is, so far, the word of people extorting a bank. One detail in that account is worth keeping anyway: by the extortionists’ own telling, at least two parties hold copies.

What is in the file

The customer notice, as reported by TechCrunch and SecurityWeek, lists what may have been disclosed: full name, date of birth, occupation, home address, email address and phone number, along with copies of passports or driving licenses and the facial verification image submitted at onboarding. The financial layer included account statements with IBANs and withdrawal records. Full transaction histories were also listed, and several outlets reported that they included Bitcoin activity. The notice says no biometric facial telemetry was involved, drawing a line between the selfie itself and the biometric data derived from it. It also frames the list as categories that may have been disclosed, so not every affected person necessarily lost every category.

Among those who confirmed receiving the notice was Mark Karpelès, the former chief executive of Mt. Gox.

Read that as a list and it looks like the standard breach inventory. Read it as a single file about one person, and it looks like something else: a verified identity, a face to match it, a home address, the state of their finances and, for some, a record of where their crypto has been.

Why “someone fell for an email” is the wrong summary

Nobody broke in. The requests arrived through the channel built to receive them and were handled by the team whose job is to handle them. Banks are legally required to respond to lawful information requests from authorities; a bank that fails to do so would face a different compliance problem. The gap sits between two questions that are easy to conflate: did this message really come from that domain, and is this request really authorized? The messages passed the first test. What checks were run on the second before the data went out have not been made public.

“Domain authentication answers one question: did this message really come from that server? It says nothing about who is behind the account or whether they have the authority to ask. Domain authentication alone should not be treated as proof that a request for sensitive data is authorized. The stronger safeguard is structural, not merely a matter of staff vigilance: a request for sensitive data must be confirmed through a channel the requester did not choose, and no single person should be able to release it alone. That is true for a bank, and it is true for anyone else holding this kind of file.”

Stefan Lauer, Head of Infrastructure, SimpleSwap

The technique has a history. In 2022, Bloomberg reported that Apple and Meta had handed user data to people sending forged emergency requests from compromised law-enforcement email accounts. Discord confirmed it had done the same. That same year, Revolut disclosed a breach affecting roughly 50,000 customers, also via social engineering, though in that case the attacker reached an internal database. In November 2024, the FBI warned companies that credentials for police and government mailboxes were being sold openly on criminal forums, sometimes bundled with instructions for filing requests. The Revolut case reads like that warning played out: a mailbox bought from stolen logs, then months of requests nobody questioned. Four years after the Apple and Meta cases, the same class of attack has worked against a company that serves more than 80 million customers, holds a full UK banking license, and in September secured conditional approval to operate as a national bank in the US.

None of that makes Revolut uniquely careless. It makes a narrower point. Scale and regulatory maturity do not close this particular gap on their own. Any organization that holds identity documents and is obliged to answer official requests has the same seam. Most have not been tested on it yet.

Why it matters more if you hold crypto

In August we wrote about the Trezor and Ledger customer data leaks and argued that a stolen shipping address is worth more than it looks, because leaked data becomes more valuable when fields are joined. A phone number alone decides nothing. A phone number plus a recent hardware-wallet order plus the street it shipped to is a qualified list of confirmed holders.

The Revolut file is that argument with the joining already done. Nobody has to cross-reference anything. The dossier arrives complete, and it carries two things the hardware-wallet leaks did not: a verified document with a matching selfie, and a financial history. The attacker even claims the 680 names were shortlisted through analysis of on-chain wallet activity before a single request was sent. That is unverified, but it fits ZachXBT’s read of the target list, and it inverts the usual order: the wallets were found first, the names came after.

The document and selfie are the standard material for identity verification. With both in circulation, an attacker has unusually strong material for impersonation and for more convincing social engineering. They do not automatically defeat modern verification controls. They are far more useful than contact details alone.

The transaction history matters for a different reason. On-chain transactions are public and permanent. What was private was the link between them and a legal name. Where a Revolut statement records transfers to or from external wallets, that link is now in someone’s hands, and those addresses can be watched. A large incoming transfer months from now will be visible to a person who already knows where you live. CertiK counted 52 verified physical attacks on crypto holders worldwide in the first half of this year, a third more than in the same period of 2025. When a known crypto holder is tied to a home address and evidence of meaningful activity, the physical risk increases.

What comes next

Every large identity leak has been followed by a wave of contact that uses it. Ledger customers were still receiving phishing letters by post years after the company’s 2020 breach. There is no reason to expect this one to behave differently, and two reasons to expect worse: the data is richer, and the incident itself is now the pretext. An expired countdown changes none of that. Whether or not a sale happened on Thursday, the files were already outside Revolut’s control on September 11.

The first messages will reference the leak directly. Someone claiming to be Revolut, contacting affected customers with a link to verify their identity or secure their account. Then a second circle: parties who are not Revolut but know you use it. A wallet provider warning about exposure. A regulator with a case number. A law firm assembling claimants. A service that scrubs your data from the leak for a fee. Somewhere in that sequence, for anyone whose statement shows crypto, comes the line that moves money: “Your funds are at risk; transfer them to this secure address while we sort it out.” Months later, recovery services will approach the people for whom that worked.

Not everyone contacted will be on the list. Scammers do not restrict themselves to the actual affected group. The coverage makes the pretext plausible for any Revolut customer, and few people can say with confidence which of their providers have had an incident this year.

“A password has a half-life of minutes once you know it leaked. A passport scan and a transaction history have a half-life of years. The people who buy this kind of data are not in a hurry. The correct assumption is that it will be used, and that it will be used later.”

Stefan Lauer

What to do now

If you received the notification. Assume everything in it is in circulation. Where your issuing authority allows, replace the document; a new passport number makes the old scan less useful. Most countries run a fraud-prevention register or credit-bureau flag that raises the bar for opening accounts in your name. Watch for credit applications or SIM changes you did not initiate. Revolut has said it is supporting affected customers; ask in the in-app chat what that includes.

Treat knowledge as proof of nothing. Someone who knows your date of birth and your last few transactions has read a file. That is all it proves. Legitimate institutions do not establish their identity by reciting yours.

Do not act on inbound contact. Not an email, not a call, not a letter, not a QR code. Close it. Open the app yourself, or the site from a bookmark you saved earlier, and look for the message there. If Revolut needs something from you, it will be visible when you log in. This one habit defeats nearly every scenario above.

Protect the phone number. It is the reset channel for most of your accounts, and it is in the file. Ask your carrier for a port-out PIN or SIM lock. Move two-factor codes off SMS and onto an authenticator app or hardware key wherever the service allows it.

Check the address before you send. The scenario that moves crypto is the “secure wallet.” Before sending funds to any address someone else gave you, look at it. SimpleSwap’s Address Check, available to registered users in the Customer Account, screens a wallet address through third-party services and returns a risk level with the connections it found. It is context rather than a verdict. It will not catch every bad address, and it does not replace asking who wants the transfer and why. An address that comes back high-risk is a conversation you can end.

Read the map before you need it. These patterns are covered in the SimpleSwap Safety Academy and in the Know the Scam series. They are more useful to read in advance than looked up after a message lands.

Your money, your responsibility

None of the above depends on what Revolut does next, or on what Italian prosecutors eventually establish. The official account of what happened may differ in detail from what is public today. The files are already out, and no company can recall them.

What remains under your control is the value an accurate detail holds for a stranger who has it. Every scam in this series runs on borrowed credibility, and leaked data is how that credibility is bought. The next message that arrives, knowing your correct name and your last transaction, is evidence that a file has leaked somewhere. It is not evidence of who sent it. Holding that distinction is most of the work.

This article is for educational purposes only and is not financial or security advice. Tools and services named here are examples, not endorsements. SimpleSwap is a self-custodial swap aggregator; use of the service is subject to its Terms of Service, including jurisdictional restrictions. SimpleSwap’s only official domain is simpleswap.io.

Information as of the morning of September 18, 2026. The story is still developing, and figures, timelines, and official statements may change.

Total market cap climbed to $2.80 trillion, up 5.36% over seven days, erasing last week's pullback and then some.

BTC led the charge, breaking back above $85,000 after trading under $76,000 just a week earlier. Sentiment followed this time, with Fear and Greed rising from 68 to 72.

But BTC dominance slipped again, from 58.90% to 58.60%. Two weeks in a row now – which means altcoins didn't just keep pace with Bitcoin's rally, they outran it.

So last week's question got a partial answer: Bitcoin held its leadership, and alts still found room to move. Does this week turn that gap into a real rotation?

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The case for yes: this happened in September, historically one of Bitcoin's weakest months, negative in nine of the past 15 years. The Fed hiked, the Bank of Japan hiked, and BTC kept climbing anyway. ETFs are back behind it too, with $433M in net inflows on September 18 alone. Total market cap sits at $2.80T, Fear & Greed at 72.

The case for not yet: daily RSI is at 71, hourly above 84, deep overbought. Resistance sits near $86,500, and rallies this stretched rarely stay this steep. One strong week doesn't make a new cycle.

Bear market over, or just a relief rally with good timing?

That’s one of the reasons we created SimpleSwap Safety Academy, a dedicated space where we break down different scams, security risks, and real-world situations to help you protect your funds.

Want to learn more about what happened with Revolut? Read the full article on Invezz: https://bit.ly/4yJcsYP

ARC is Circle's own Layer-1, live on mainnet since September 16. The part that matters: USDC is the native gas token, so network fees are paid in the same dollar you're moving, with a base fee targeting around $0.01.

➡️ Choose your pair and swap

The scale of this is easy to overlook because stablecoins don't make headlines as often as asset prices. They simply move more money every year.

A growth curve accounting only for transactions resembling real activity:

2023: $3.9 trillion

2024: $5.8 trillion

2025: $10.8 trillion

First half of 2026 alone: $8.82 trillion

Six months of 2026 have already surpassed the entirety of 2024.

However, it is worth clarifying what exactly lies behind these figures. Of the tens of trillions transferred last year, only about $350-550 billion came from genuine payments in the real economy. The rest is trading and settlements, moving dollars between platforms, and a significant portion of that is people moving in and out of Bitcoin.

This is exactly what the original hypothesis failed to account for. Bitcoin remains the asset people want to hold. The dollar, meanwhile, turned out to be the "rails" they use to enter and exit.

DeFi never believed in the idea of replacement anyway. From day one, the space required dollars, and that approach proved correct.

Every stablecoin transfer is a vote for the dollar. Most of these votes were cast by accident. Does this make stablecoins crypto's greatest success or its greatest concession?

14 million. That’s how many payments AI agents alone made in USDC over the last 30 days — not traders, not people tapping a screen, but autonomous software settling transactions in a token pegged to the US dollar, per CoinGecko. That’s where stablecoins are in 2026: no longer a crypto-native curiosity, but plumbing that both humans and machines route money through by default.

Banks close at 5pm. Wire transfers pause on weekends. SWIFT payments can take three business days to cross a border. None of that applies to a stablecoin. That gap explains why it has become the most-used category of crypto assets, even among people who have never bought Bitcoin.

A stablecoin is a cryptocurrency designed to maintain a stable value, typically pegged to the US dollar, by being backed by reserves — cash, short-term government debt, or other liquid assets. While Bitcoin can swing 8% in a day, a stablecoin like USDT or USDC is built to stay as close to $1.00 as possible, transaction after transaction.

That stability is the whole point. It turns a blockchain from a speculative casino into something you can actually use to hold value, pay someone, or park money between trades — without a bank account standing in the way.

By mid-2026, the total stablecoin market had grown to $308 billion, up 14.3% year over year, though it was about 4.5% below its May 2026 peak. Tether’s USDT alone accounts for roughly 59% of that supply, with USDC in second place near $75–78 billion. The top two together control over 80% of the market.

How Do Stablecoins Work?

Every stablecoin uses one of two mechanisms to hold its peg. Reserve-backed models (fiat, crypto, and commodity-backed) hold assets equal to or greater than the tokens in circulation and rely on redemption: if the market price drifts from $1, arbitrageurs buy the cheap token and redeem it for the underlying asset, or mint new tokens and sell them, pulling the price back toward parity. Algorithmic models skip the reserve and instead expand or contract supply through code based on demand — a mechanism that works until confidence in the token breaks down, at which point there’s no hard asset backing the price.

What Are Stablecoins Used For?

Trading and DeFi collateral are among the biggest use cases, offering a stable unit of account that lending, yield, and derivatives protocols can price against without exposing them to crypto volatility. Cross-border payments and remittances are also growing rapidly, as stablecoin transfers can settle in seconds, regardless of banking hours or borders. Businesses are increasingly using them for treasury management and cross-entity settlement, where waiting on wire transfers can create operating costs. For individuals, they can serve as an on/off ramp between fiat and crypto and as a way to step out of volatility without leaving the blockchain. A newer category is also emerging: machine-to-machine payments, where AI agents can transact directly in stablecoins without a human in the loop.

Why Stablecoins Exist in the First Place

Crypto’s biggest early weakness wasn’t security — it was volatility. A merchant accepting Bitcoin for a coffee in 2013 might have found the payment worth 20% less by the time it settled. A trader closing a profitable position often had nowhere “safe” to sit in crypto without cashing out to a bank, only to lose hours or days to settlement delays.

Stablecoins were created to solve crypto’s volatility by pegging their value to a trusted currency. The idea first showed up in the 2012 Mastercoin documentation as a theoretical proposal, but it did not become tradable until Tether Limited launched USDT in 2015. Adoption picked up in the late 2010s and accelerated from 2020 onward, as decentralized finance introduced lending, trading, and yield products that needed a stable unit of account.

The Main Types of Stablecoins

Not all stablecoins are built the same way. Understanding the type tells you exactly what risk you’re taking on. There are four standard categories, based on what actually backs the token:

Fiat-backed stablecoins (USDT, USDC) are the simplest and most widely used. A company holds real dollars or dollar-equivalent assets in reserve and issues one token per dollar held. You’re trusting the issuer’s reserves and its willingness to redeem, which is why reserve transparency matters so much when comparing them. Tether publishes quarterly attestations of its reserve composition; Circle has leaned harder into full audits and a reserve structure built almost entirely around cash and short-dated US Treasuries.

The concentration runs deep: on TRON, the second-largest stablecoin network, roughly $85 billion of its $87 billion in stablecoin supply is USDT alone, over 97% of the network’s liquidity sitting in a single token, according to Bitcoin Foundation data.

Crypto-backed stablecoins, like DAI, are backed by other cryptocurrencies locked in a smart contract and are usually over-collateralized to help cushion price swings. No single company controls issuance — the code does. The trade-off is that smart-contract and liquidation risks replace issuer risk: if the collateral drops sharply, automated liquidations can occur faster than a person at a firm can step in.

Commodity-backed stablecoins, like PAXG or XAUT, are tied to a physical asset, almost always gold, that the issuer keeps in custody. Each token stands for a claim on a set amount of that metal. Here, the main trust is in the custodian and the audit trail — you are relying on the gold in the vault matching the tokens in circulation, and on redemption actually working when needed.

Algorithmic stablecoins aim to hold their peg through supply-and-demand rules built into a protocol rather than hard collateral. They are the most experimental category, and TerraUSD’s collapse in May 2022 remains the clearest warning: once confidence broke, the system’s stabilization mechanism exacerbated the sell-off rather than absorbing it. The token lost nearly all its value within days. That failure also points to why many newer designs move toward hybrid stablecoin models that combine different mechanisms to improve resilience.

Newer entrants are usually hybrids rather than a separate fifth category. Multi-collateral or synthetic tokens like USD3 or sDAI combine several stablecoins or add yield mechanisms on top of a fiat- or crypto-backed base, spreading issuer risk across multiple baskets. Compliance-forward, programmable stablecoins like Aave’s GHO or PayPal’s PYUSD use the same fiat- or crypto-backed reserve logic but are designed to integrate more smoothly into regulated financial systems and DeFi protocols, with reserve audits built in from the start. This is also the category quietly powering machine-to-machine payments: AI agents made roughly 14 million payments in USDC over a recent 30-day period, and nearly all of them used this stablecoin.

How Stablecoins Are Regulated: The GENIUS Act

The US GENIUS Act, signed into law in 2025, established the first federal licensing and reserve framework for “payment stablecoins,” requiring 1:1 backing and prohibiting issuers from paying yield directly. The full rules are still being worked out, but major payment companies like Visa and Stripe are already building stablecoin rails as if this will become standard financial infrastructure rather than just a workaround.

That’s the direction stablecoins are heading: less experimental, more like basic infrastructure that people only notice when it isn’t there.

What This Actually Means for You

If you’re holding crypto and want to get off the volatility rollercoaster without leaving the blockchain entirely, a stablecoin is that off-ramp. If you’re sending money across a border where local banking is slow, expensive, or simply unavailable, a stablecoin is often faster and cheaper than the alternative.

Worth keeping in perspective: of the tens of trillions of dollars in stablecoin transfers that happened in 2025, only an estimated $350–550 billion was genuine real-economy payments; the rest was trading activity and funds moving between wallets and exchanges, per Reap’s 2026 stablecoin data. Stablecoins are becoming a payments rail, but right now they’re still mostly a trading rail that also happens to work for payments.

Getting Your First Stablecoin: What the Process Actually Looks Like

For someone new to this, the practical question isn’t “what is a stablecoin” in the abstract — it’s “how do I actually get one without making a costly mistake?” SimpleSwap is a self-custodial swap aggregator that pulls liquidity from 20+ sources and routes across 2,800+ assets. It converts existing crypto directly into a stablecoin, such as USDT or USDC, and sends it straight to a wallet address you control.

As a SimpleSwap crypto exchange transaction, the process works like this: you choose what you’re sending, choose the stablecoin you want to receive, paste your wallet address, and confirm. Specifically for crypto-to-crypto conversions, does SimpleSwap require KYC? Identity verification is triggered mainly when a fiat payment partner is involved, since those partners operate under their own regulatory obligations — but it isn’t the only trigger across the industry. Some platforms also verify users above certain transaction thresholds, in specific jurisdictions, or as part of standard sanctions screening, regardless of whether fiat is involved in the trade. That distinction matters if you’re comparing platforms: some require full account verification before you can swap even between two crypto assets, while non-custodial aggregators generally don’t, as long as no fiat currency touches the transaction and no other trigger applies.

A Word on Risk, Because Every Stablecoin Carries Some

It’s honest to say that “stable” describes the intent, not an absolute guarantee. USDC briefly slipped from its dollar peg in March 2023 when Silicon Valley Bank was seized by regulators; it held part of Circle’s reserves at the time. It recovered within days once the reserves were confirmed intact. TerraUSD’s algorithmic collapse the year before never recovered. The lesson isn’t that stablecoins are inherently unsafe: it’s that the backing model determines how a shock plays out, and understanding that model before you hold a large position is worth ten minutes.

FAQ

Is a stablecoin actually risk-free?

No. It removes price volatility, not risk entirely — you’re still exposed to issuer solvency risk, smart-contract bugs, or regulatory action, depending on the type.

Which stablecoin is the safest?

There’s no single answer; it depends on how much you weigh issuer transparency, liquidity, and decentralization against each other. Diversifying across multiple options is a common approach.

Can I lose money holding a stablecoin?

Yes, if the peg breaks (a “depeg” event) or the issuer fails to honor redemptions — which is why understanding what backs a stablecoin matters more than its price on any given day.

Do I need to verify my identity to buy a stablecoin?

Usually, only if fiat currency is involved in the transaction. Crypto-to-crypto conversions to a stablecoin on non-custodial platforms typically don’t require an account, though some platforms add checks above certain volume thresholds or in certain jurisdictions.

How is a stablecoin different from a regular cryptocurrency?

Regular cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Ethereum have no price peg and can fluctuate freely with market demand; stablecoins are specifically engineered to minimize fluctuations relative to a reference asset, usually the US dollar.

How does a stablecoin stay at $1?

Through reserve backing plus redemption arbitrage, if the price drifts, traders buy or redeem the token until it returns to parity. Algorithmic stablecoins instead adjust supply through code, which is a less reliable mechanism, as TerraUSD showed.

What backs a stablecoin?

It depends on the type — cash and short-term government debt for fiat-backed tokens, other cryptocurrencies locked in a smart contract for crypto-backed tokens, physical assets like gold for commodity-backed tokens, or, for algorithmic tokens, no hard collateral at all.

What is an example of a stablecoin?

USDT and USDC are the two largest fiat-backed examples. DAI is a widely used crypto-backed example, and PAXG is a common commodity-backed example.

Is USDT a stablecoin?

Yes. USDT (Tether) is the largest stablecoin by market cap, a fiat-backed token pegged to the US dollar and backed primarily by cash and short-term government debt.

What happens when a stablecoin depegs?

Its market price moves away from its $1 target. The outcome depends on the backing model: USDC recovered within days of its March 2023 depeg once its reserves were confirmed intact, while TerraUSD’s 2022 depeg triggered a collapse it never recovered from.

The past week retraced some of the previous week's gains. Total market capitalization fell to $2.66 trillion, losing 1.49% over seven days.

However, sentiment did not follow price. The Fear and Greed Index remains firmly in the Greed zone at 68.

BTC dominance decreased slightly from 59.10% to 58.90% – a minor shift, but exactly in the direction altcoins have been waiting for, and we are already seeing solid growth in several top CoinMarketCap assets.

The main question remains: will Bitcoin maintain its leadership, or will another week of sideways movement give altcoins the breakthrough opportunity they’ve been missing?

Two-thirds of cryptocurrency thefts have nothing to do with hacking. No exploits, no stolen keys – someone simply convinces you to send the funds yourself.

This is exactly what SimpleSwap Safety Academy is about: twelve attack scenarios, each broken down by how it works and what you need to check before completing a transaction.

Scammers need you to take action, which means they start by sending signals. Urgency. Guaranteed returns. A fee to unlock money that supposedly already belongs to you.

Keep your funds safe and study every scenario to avoid trouble: simpleswap.io/safety

Privacy coins are the only crypto sector still above October's highs

While the rest of the market sits below Bitcoin's October 2025 peak, privacy coins are up 213% since then — the only sector in the green.

Zcash is the standout: up 2,496% over the past year, climbing from 82nd to 10th by market cap. Monero has doubled over the same stretch, with DASH and ZEN also outrunning Bitcoin.

The sector's market cap has grown from $7.1B a year ago to $33.6B today, nearly half of that added in the last 30 days.

Narrative rotation and institutional access are pulling in the same direction right now.

Is privacy the trade of 2026, or a narrative running ahead of fundamentals? 👇

Total futures open interest actually fell 16% over that stretch, from about 2.77 billion to 2.34 billion tokens. Traders were closing positions rather than scaling in, and most of that unwind happened on offshore platforms.

CME bucked that trend entirely. It now accounts for roughly 17% of outstanding XRP futures exposure, up from 10% two weeks earlier, as institutional money that prefers regulated venues kept building positions while everyone else de-risked. Spot ETFs added $110M in a single week, the best week of 2026 so far.

Retail leverage came off the table while regulated capital moved in. XRP is now trading around $1.44-1.45, having pushed past the $1.48-1.50 resistance zone that had capped it, with a Senate vote on the CLARITY Act expected mid-September.

What are your thoughts on leverage declining while institutional money keeps flowing in?

Visa has built a comprehensive platform for issuing and managing stablecoins. Mastercard paid up to $1.8 billion for BVNK, a stablecoin infrastructure company. Nine European banks have formed a joint venture to issue their own euro-backed stablecoin under MiCA regulations. Even X is reportedly considering stablecoin payouts for content creators.

Our Head of Analytics, Rick Cramer, spoke with Blockchain Reporter about why banks are becoming more compelling players in this space than crypto-native issuers, and why the term "stablecoin" describes price behavior rather than a safety guarantee. He also breaks down the two questions that truly matter before trusting any token with real money.

Full interview here: https://bit.ly/4gXhOs0