GM, bitcoiner — October 18, 2026

gm

Your morning Bitcoin brief: Excellion says Liquid peg restoration is still underway, French National Assembly narrowly adopts a stablecoin swap tax proposal, a SwiftSync proof of concept in Floresta and other bitcoin news

## Network Stats

As of Oct 18, 2026, 5:01 AM EDT

MARKET
  Price       $81,672  (+0.07%)
  24h volume  $15.0 bn
  Dominance   59.5%
  Sats / $    1,224

NETWORK
  Block       #971,963
  Hashrate    1,008 EH/s
  Difficulty  -3.47%
  Retarget    13 days
  Halving     542 days  (62.8%)

MEMPOOL
  Fee    1 sat/vB
  TX     73,169
  Size   39.4 MB
  Queue  40 blocks

LIGHTNING
  Capacity  4,451 BTC
  Channels  39,627

## Security & Privacy

### Liquid peg restoration still underway, according to @Excellion

@Excellion says an external security audit and Blockstream’s internal coordination on how to fund a 600 BTC shortfall are running in parallel, and that Indra swaps for payments continue, with limits rising to 250k sats per swap. x.com x.com

### Lopp’s wrench attack map reaches 702 incidents after AI-assisted search

Researcher Pizza Bitcoiner used AI-assisted searches to uncover hundreds of overlooked cases, more than doubling Jameson Lopp’s archive of physical attacks on crypto holders. news.bitcoin.com

### Eclair patches a browser attack that could send commands to Lightning nodes

The Oct. 15 release blocks a cached-authentication route to Eclair’s API and requires browser interfaces that connect to it directly to add a backend. cryptoslate.com

## Regulation & Policy

### French National Assembly narrowly adopts stablecoin swap tax proposal

If passed, the measure would subject French holders to a 31.4% capital gains tax each time they swap a cryptocurrency for a stablecoin; analysts say it would push holders to look for other places to park their assets. news.bitcoin.com

### EU joins eight nations in signing Warsaw Protocol on crypto crime

The treaty modernizes the Warsaw Convention, adding crypto assets to its scope and expanding the powers of financial intelligence units over them, with an emphasis on international cooperation and faster information requests. news.bitcoin.com

## Institutions & Treasuries

### The trade-off behind Strive’s 16.7% bitcoin income offer

Strive offers a 15% annual dividend paid in small installments every business day; on Oct. 15 it priced seven million shares, and CryptoSlate argues the price buyers agreed to pay is the more revealing number. cryptoslate.com

## Funds & ETFs

### Bitcoin and ether ETFs lose $152M as BlackRock drives Friday selloff

US bitcoin funds lost $82.39 million and ether ETFs shed another $69.68 million on Friday, with the source describing bitcoin ETF demand as fragile. news.bitcoin.com

## Technology & Development

### SwiftSync proof of concept aims to speed up IBD with pre-generated hints

Floresta has added a SwiftSync implementation that uses the implicit-deletions technique for Utreexo. delvingbitcoin.org github.com

## Price & Market

### Two 2013-era bitcoin wallets move about $34 million in the same block

The two addresses moved roughly $34 million in BTC within five seconds on Oct. 17, with both transactions appearing at block height 971894. news.bitcoin.com

## Bitcoin Rap Sheet

### Turkey’s justice minister confirms detention of HEX founder Richard Heart in Istanbul

Authorities detained Heart and four others, finding an estimated $7.15 million in cash, six cryptocurrency wallets, weapons, electronics and hundreds of designer accessories. news.bitcoin.com