The week's top crypto stories: a former SEC chair takes on a new intelligence role, a $600,000 Bitcoin target, Blast's shutdown, Ethereum's next upgrade, and a record month for crypto hacks.

Trump Taps Intel Chief Jay Clayton to Lead New 'Super Intelligence Force'

US President Donald Trump has named Jay Clayton, the US director of national intelligence, to lead the country's new Super Intelligence Force, according to a post on Truth Social published on Sunday.

"The Super Intelligence Force is tasked with coordinating the effort of the Federal Government to ensure that America continues to lead the World in Super Intelligence," Trump wrote.

Clayton led the Securities and Exchange Commission during Trump's first term, launching a prosecution against Ripple for selling securities on his last day in office. He later served as US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, where he led the criminal trial against Roman Storm for his involvement in Tornado Cash.

Storm commented: "It doesn't look like we're headed toward a future that supports open-source AI."

Separately, Elon Musk is renaming SpaceXAI to SpaceXSI in honor of the president's directive to rename "artificial intelligence" to "super intelligence," Reuters reported.

Source: [Cointelegraphhttps://cointelegraph.com/news/trump-taps-jay-clayton-to-lead-new-super-intelligence-force)

NEAR Intents Hack Ends With Funds Returned

NEAR has been riding a wave of positive sentiment lately, more than doubling in price over the past month. This week it drew praise in some quarters — and criticism in others — after its SHIELD AI system blocked funds stolen from Bitget from moving through its INTENTS cross-chain swaps platform. Its Bitwise ETF also debuted this week with almost $60 million in inflows.

SHIELD additionally helped halt a $3.8 million exploit of NEAR Intents, which stemmed from a "bug in the Omni deposit and withdrawal infrastructure interaction with NEAR Intents smart contract." Sentiment flipped bearish for roughly seven and a half minutes, until NEAR Intents general manager Alex Shevchenko posted "we have identified you, sir" and issued a 48-hour ultimatum to return the funds or face the full force of the law.

"You know better than most how responsible disclosure works — this is the last window to use it. After 48 hours, that window closes," he wrote.

The funds were duly returned, and Shevchenko urged other exploiters thinking of posing as white hat hackers to "use bug bounties instead of disrupting the services."

The decision to block Bitget's stolen funds sparked widespread debate and stood in stark contrast to THORChain, which has refused to block swaps on its platform, pointing to ideals around decentralization. There is also a live debate over whether SHIELD blocking funds leaves it legally liable for everything that happens on the platform in the future.

NEAR is down 11% this week.

Sources: Cointelegraph | Cointelegraph

Arthur Hayes Says Money Printing Is Inevitable

Money printing is coming, driven by the AI revolution, the United States' debt crisis and increasing financial stress in France, according to Arthur Hayes, BitMEX co-founder and chief investment officer at Maelstrom fund.

AI companies need trillions of dollars to finance data centers even as the prices of their services fall, Hayes said during a fireside chat at CONNECT by Cointelegraph: Seoul Edition on Tuesday, held during Korea Blockchain Week.

"They've not really given themselves a lot of options other than print money and make it less bad," he said.

Hayes also discussed China potentially moving to monetary stimulus alongside mounting financial stress in France, including credit-default swaps tied to BNP Paribas and French government bond spreads.

Source: Cointelegraph

Blast to Wind Down Ethereum L2 After Costs Outpace Revenue

Ethereum layer-2 network Blast is shutting down after its operating costs exceeded the revenue generated by the chain.

In a Friday post on X, Blast said it sees no "credible path" to making the network economically sustainable and asked users to withdraw their assets to Ethereum mainnet: "Unfortunately, the economics of operating the chain no longer make sense."

Blast was founded in November 2023 by Tieshun "Pacman" Roquerre, the founder of NFT marketplace Blur, and launched with native yield on Ether and stablecoins alongside a points program tied to an anticipated token airdrop. The strategy helped attract more than $2 billion in deposits before mainnet launched in February 2024.

Its DeFi total value locked has fallen by more than 98% since its June 2024 peak, according to DeFiLlama.

The wind-down is a reminder that a large deposit base does not guarantee a sustainable chain — revenue still has to cover the cost of running the network, a bar Blast concluded it could no longer clear.

Source: Cointelegraph

Ethereum Schedules Glamsterdam Upgrade on Sepolia for Oct. 6

Ethereum developers have scheduled the network's next major upgrade, Glamsterdam, to activate on the Sepolia testnet on Oct. 6.

Sepolia node operators must update both their execution-layer and consensus-layer clients before the activation, the Ethereum Foundation said. Testnet activations are a standard stage in Ethereum's process, giving client teams and node operators a chance to surface bugs before changes move closer to mainnet.

One of Glamsterdam's changes is enshrined proposer-builder separation, which will move the handoff between specialized block builders and validators into Ethereum's protocol, reducing reliance on outside middleware. The upgrade will also introduce block-level access lists, which record the accounts and storage locations used during each block, and will enable parallel processing by clients to speed up throughput.

Winners and Losers

At the end of the week, Bitcoin (BTC) is up 1.4% to trade at $85,821, Ethereum (ETH) is up 0.6% to trade at $2,701, and XRP (XRP) is down 0.8% to $1.50. The total market cap stands at $2.92 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap.

Among the biggest 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin winners of the week are Midnight (NIGHT) with a 60.6% gain, StarkNet (SRK) on 14.5%, and Pump.fun (PUMP) on 26.3%.

The top three altcoin losers of the week are Lighter (LIT), down 22.2%; Zcash (SEC), down 16.4%; and Ethena (ENA), down 14%.

Prediction of the Week

Peter Brandt Says Bitcoin May Hit $600K by 2029

Veteran trader Peter Brandt has flipped bullish, after warning in July that prices could fall into the high $40K zone.

"There's a good possibility we have seen the low and now are entering a new bull market cycle in Bitcoin," Brandt told Cointelegraph on the latest episode of Trade Secrets.

Brandt has also raised his sights for Bitcoin's next peak, putting a late-2029 high of between $300,000 and $600,000, up from $250,000 to $300,000 range he outlined in July.

"The bull market cycle this time has a very good chance of reaching half a million," he said.

As with any market forecast, Brandt's targets represent one trader's reading of the cycle rather than a guaranteed outcome.

Sources: Cointelegraph Magazine | Trade Secrets on YouTube

Top FUD of the Week

Crypto Hacks Top $768M in September, Worst Month of 2026

Crypto suffered its worst month of the year for hacks and exploits in September, with two blockchain security firms estimating losses at more than $766 million.

PeckShield counted 55 major incidents resulting in $766.5 million in stolen funds, while CertiK recorded 97 incidents and estimated losses at $768.4 million.

The month included the $388 million Bitget hack and a $320 million hack of the Liquid Network. More than $270 million was later returned, according to reports.

"September was a stark reminder of how quickly the threat landscape can shift," CertiK said.

Other crypto hacks in the month included Safe Wallet, DCENT and Duelbits, which lost $7.8 million, $6 million and $5.9 million, respectively.

Sources: Cointelegraph | Cointelegraph | Cointelegraph

Aave Founder Says V3 Unaffected After Third-Party Adapter Exploit Drains $305K

Aave founder Stani Kulechov said Aave v3 was unaffected by an exploit that drained roughly $305,000 from two Safe multisig wallets through a third-party adapter built on top of the lending protocol.

"This is not Aave v3 contract, it's third party external adapter built on top of Aave, zero effect on Aave v3," Kulechov said on X.

Source: Cointelegraph

Tether Says It Helped Freeze $550M in Iran-Linked USDT This Year

Stablecoin issuer Tether said it helped authorities freeze nearly $550 million in Iran-linked USDT during 2026.

The statement came as Democratic investigators on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released a report alleging USDT had become a key channel for Iran to evade sanctions.

Investigators found that 84% of 846 crypto wallets sanctioned over ties to Iran had transacted exclusively or nearly exclusively in USDT. The findings prompted US Senator Richard Blumenthal to call on the Treasury and Justice departments to investigate potential sanctions violations.

Source: Cointelegraph

Top Magazine Features of the Week

Furious debate about THORChain vs NEAR shows idealism has limits. The furious debate over Bitget's $387.7 million of hacked funds comes down to whether ideals around "permissionless and decentralized" tech mean never intervening — even if you could. (Cointelegraph Magazine)

Could THORChain face prosecution over stolen Bitget funds? Legal opinion. THORChain will not — or cannot — block addresses linked to the $387.5 million Bitget hack. Can the devs be prosecuted for money laundering? It's complicated, says crypto lawyer Yuriy Brisov. (Cointelegraph Magazine)

Stablecoins can drain from banks and nations at lightning speed. Highly liquid and settling 24/7, stablecoins can leave banks and countries at lightning speed. But whether stablecoins are a risk — or an opportunity — depends on your perspective. (Cointelegraph Magazine)

Source: Cointelegraph