Bitcoin's supply is capped at 21 million, and about 20.1 million already exist. New coins slow with every halving until the reward hits zero around 2140. The final total stops just short of 21 million, and miners then live on fees alone.
Saudi Arabia has no comprehensive crypto law. Owning Bitcoin is not a crime, but no exchange holds a local license and regulators have warned against crypto since 2018. This guide explains what is allowed, what is not, and where the rules may head.
The CFTC has proposed Regulation CTX and CAM, a federal path for exchanges that let retail customers trade crypto with leverage. It issued the advance notice on 5 October 2026 and set a comment deadline of 14 December. Spot trading stays outside the plan.
Bitget says it is behind BTGT Management, the buyer of GMO Internet's licensed Thai exchange. GMO's board approved the sale on September 24 for an undisclosed price, with the transfer set for October 31, pending Thai regulatory approval. The deal follows a hack Bitget put at around $388 million.
FINMA has approved Switzerland's first spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund open to retail investors, waiving a core diversification rule and attaching strict custody conditions. The regulator has not named the issuer or set a launch date.
XRP is not a stablecoin. Its price floats on the open market, from well under a penny to more than three dollars. The confusion comes from Ripple's separate dollar stablecoin, RLUSD, launched in December 2024. Here is how the two differ.
Bitcoin going to zero is possible but, by the evidence, very unlikely. One Yale study put the odds of a collapse at 0.3 percent, and the coin has been declared dead 477 times and traded on. Here is what would actually have to break first.
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Read from the Bitcoin network itself, from companies’ own SEC filings and from the US Treasury’s sanctions list. No price here and no forecasts: the live price is on our bitcoin price page. Free to quote with credit.
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The CFTC's plan gives crypto exchanges a clear federal path to operate under national oversight, filling the gap Congress left.
Our read: The CFTC has published a detailed advance notice and can act under existing commodity law, so the intent is real. But it is an advance notice, not a rule. There is no binding text, the comment period runs to 14 December, the regime is optional, and it does not touch spot trading, which stays under state law. A single commissioner is driving it.
Bitget is expanding across Southeast Asia by acquiring a licensed Thai exchange that gives it a regulated foothold in the country.
Our read: GMO Internet's September 24 filing confirms BTGT Management as the named buyer and an October 31 target, and Bitget says it stands behind BTGT. But the price is undisclosed, Bitget has not said how large its stake in BTGT is, the change of control still needs Thai regulatory approval, no Thai launch date is set, and the target has lost money three years running.
Switzerland has approved its first spot bitcoin ETF that any retail investor can buy, opening direct bitcoin fund investing to the Swiss public.
Our read: FINMA confirmed the approval and the diversification waiver on 20 October 2026, and several outlets reported it independently. But FINMA will not name the fund, the issuer or a launch date, so no one can buy it yet, and its fees, custodian and size are unknown.
France has moved to tax crypto-to-stablecoin conversions from 2027.
Our read: The National Assembly did adopt amendment I-3898 on 16 October, and the vote and text are on the public record. But it passed 38 to 37, sits inside a budget whose revenue section has not been voted, and still needs the Senate. One outlet rates a rejection of that section as likely, and no list of covered tokens exists yet.
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Bitcoin's supply is capped at 21 million, and about 20.1 million already exist. New coins slow with every halving until the reward hits zero around 2140. The final total stops just short of 21 million, and miners then live on fees alone.
Bitcoin going to zero is possible but, by the evidence, very unlikely. One Yale study put the odds of a collapse at 0.3 percent, and the coin has been declared dead 477 times and traded on. Here is what would actually have to break first.
Bitcoin is pseudonymous, not anonymous. The ledger is permanent and public, and the gap between an address and a name is closed by clustering plus a subpoena. Three US cases show how, and where tracing stops.
Bitget says it is behind BTGT Management, the buyer of GMO Internet's licensed Thai exchange. GMO's board approved the sale on September 24 for an undisclosed price, with the transfer set for October 31, pending Thai regulatory approval. The deal follows a hack Bitget put at around $388 million.
Germany's savings banks started offering crypto trading on October 19, 2026, through DekaBank. Five banks went live first, with bitcoin and four other tokens on sale and each order costing 0.99 euros. The catch: DekaBank holds the keys, so customers cannot move coins to their own wallet.
JPMorgan's Kinexys unit has issued its JPM Coin deposit token on Ethereum mainnet, giving approved institutional clients a second public blockchain for around-the-clock dollar transfers. The token stays locked to vetted firms and does not trade on open markets.
A token on another chain backed one-for-one by bitcoin held elsewhere. Just over one per cent of all bitcoin is wrapped. The mechanics, the live supply figures, and what the WBTC custody fight showed about the risk.
Zero-knowledge computing project Cysic suspended its cross-chain bridge on October 17 after an attacker minted 10 million CYS tokens and cashed part of the supply out for about 306 ETH. The foundation says user wallets and its mainnet were untouched.
Solana will switch on its Alpenglow upgrade on October 21, replacing the TowerBFT voting system it has run since 2020 and targeting transaction finality of about 150 milliseconds, down from roughly 12.8 seconds. SOL holders need take no action.
The bank's 2027 forecasts put bitcoin's base-case return at about 10 percent a year, ahead of stocks, bonds and gold. The same report calls it speculative and gives it no strategic role in a portfolio.
BlackRock asked the SEC on October 19, 2026 to approve the iShares Bitcoin Managed Protection ETF, a fund that would limit losses to about the first 10% of a drop while capping gains. It holds no bitcoin directly and has no fee or launch date yet.
It was 59.59 per cent on 20 October 2026. The numerator is the cleanest market capitalisation in crypto. The denominator includes dollar tokens that never move and 22,000 assets that mostly cannot be sold at their quoted price.