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Company

The Block

The Block (theblock.co) is a news outlet covering cryptocurrency, blockchain technology, and digital asset markets.

Known aliases

  • theblock.co

Current stories

investOne report1 publisher

Bullish routes its Bitcoin options trades into Elwood's institutional post-trade platform

Bullish now feeds Bitcoin options trades and market data into Elwood Technologies, whose platform connects to more than 40 venues, Crypto Briefing reported. The gain is operational for desks already on Elwood, and it matters to Bullish only if its open interest ranking holds.

Reality

Evidence40
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+5
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence55
investOne report1 publisher

Kalshi Moves to End Volume Rebate Program, Filing Cites No Reason

Kalshi will end its volume rebate on or after October 13 as the CFTC reportedly reviews over $5 billion in repeated ether perpetual trades. Kalshi says paid market makers produced those prints, leaving investors at a $40 billion valuation to judge how much liquidity was bought.

Reality

Evidence45
Adoption65
Hype gap+15
Incentives70
Confidence45
investOne report1 publisher

Pons's creator-chosen tax waivers let one crew net $15.5 million from 56 Robinhood Chain launches

Bitquery tied 56 Robinhood Chain memecoin launches to one crew that netted about $15.5 million through wallets exempt from the Pons launchpad's snipe tax. Another 467 clusters ran the same play for a possible $11.6 million, so the weakness is in the venue's rules even though most of the money went to one group.

Reality

Evidence55
Adoption50
Hype gap+20
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence50
investOne report1 publisher

All 11 Banking Democrats ask Tim Scott to move the Kalshi conversation into a public hearing

Combined Kalshi and Polymarket volume reached $53 billion in July, an annual pace above Bernstein's forecast for all of 2026, and Senate Banking Democrats say contracts tied to corporate metrics belong to the SEC.

Reality

Evidence58
Adoption68
Hype gap+12
Incentives72
Confidence57
investConfirmed3 publishers

Venice's VVV traded $151m in a day against about $33m of float outside its 100 biggest wallets

VVV hit a record $34.51 on September 21, putting Venice near $1.62bn against a $100m annualized run rate. That is about 16 times revenue on a platform whose token burn is paid for out of the same revenue.

Perspective Coverage

3 publishers
Builder
Builder 33%
Operator
Operator 25%
Investor
Investor 42%

Reality

Evidence55
Adoption62
Hype gap+22
Incentives40
Confidence63
investOne report1 publisher

Visa strips the digital-goods code from meme-coin card buys this week

Token purchases at Crossmint checkouts on Fomo and Robinhood Wallet went out under 5815, the code for e-books and streaming, and earned ordinary points. Visa's rules put crypto under 6012 or 6051 with a quasi-cash flag.

Reality

Evidence45
Adoption35
Hype gap+25
Incentives55
Confidence42
productOne report1 publisher

Polymarket's signup flow treated a stolen SSN as a password

According to the Wall Street Journal, nearly 500 Polymarket US accounts were entered by people who typed in someone else's Social Security number. The flow's duplicate-identity check opened the account it matched instead of blocking the attempt.

Publishers:gizmodo.com

Reality

Evidence55
Adoption72
Hype gap−15
Incentives70
Confidence55
investOne report1 publisher

Visa reroutes meme coin card purchases onto crypto merchant codes

Chase challenged a single misclassified Visa purchase. The network has told payment processors that the code covering e-books and music will not carry meme coin checkouts. The Clarity Act failed to advance in the Senate the same week.

Publishers:decrypt.co

Reality

Evidence42
Adoption25
Hype gap+18
Incentives62
Confidence40
investOne report1 publisher

Bitwise liquidates a Dogecoin ETF that held $721,815 after ten months of brokerage access

Bitwise is closing its Dogecoin ETF in October after about ten months on NYSE Arca, and the fund's own filings show net assets of $473,547 at the end of June against $1.15 million six months earlier.

Reality

Evidence70
Adoption12
Hype gap+10
Incentives55
Confidence65
investOne report1 publisher

Bitcoin's 22% rally paid the median miner 1.8%

Revenue per petahash rose almost exactly in step with the coin in August, so the miners' equity gap says more about how they are funding AI build-outs than about the margin on a mined bitcoin. Luxor's forward curve offers no relief before February.

Reality

Evidence64
Adoption67
Hype gap+12
Incentives58
Confidence57
investOne report1 publisher

Block applies for OCC trust bank charter, joining 22 other digital-asset applicants

Builders Bank & Trust would custody bitcoin and stablecoins under one federal supervisor instead of fifty state ones. That is worth paying for. But 23 of the OCC's last 40 applications want much the same thing.

Reality

Evidence56
Adoption48
Hype gap+16
Incentives72
Confidence57
investOne report1 publisher

Card-bought memecoins clear checkout under Visa's code for books and movies

The Block found Robinhood Wallet and Fomo card purchases coded as digital goods while Visa's own manual reserves 6012 or 6051 for crypto. Chase has taken the discrepancy to the network rather than a regulator.

Reality

Evidence45
Adoption35
Hype gap+20
Incentives75
Confidence42
investOne report1 publisher

Figure's Kiavi close puts a $51m annual coupon behind $7bn of loan origination

The $717 million headline nets to about $590 million of cash once cash acquired is counted, and it was raised at 8.500%, which sets the hurdle every loan in the acquired pipeline now has to help clear.

Reality

Evidence58
Adoption48
Hype gap+30
Incentives68
Confidence60
investOne report1 publisher

Bitcoin's record $14,264 week arrived before the flow data that is supposed to explain it

A $1.92 billion ETF inflow print and a Fear and Greed reading of 78 say institutional sentiment flipped. Neither says whether the money was spot or borrowed.

Publishers:theblock.co

Reality

Evidence38
Adoption45
Hype gap+34
Incentives72
Confidence44
investOne report1 publisher

Grayscale's fourth Zcash amendment puts a privacy coin in front of the SEC

The Zcash Trust is being restructured for a NYSE Arca listing under ZCSH, with a DCG affiliate in non-binding talks to hand over 200,000 ZEC as seed.

Reality

Evidence58
Adoption34
Hype gap+18
Incentives72
Confidence55
investOne report1 publisher

IREN hands Microsoft its first 50MW, and the $9.7B contract starts having to be true

Horizon 1 is delivered at Childress, Texas. Billing only starts after a five-day GPU validation, which is now the number that matters more than the headline contract value.

Reality

Evidence34
Adoption42
Hype gap+33
Incentives68
Confidence33