Strive plans fresh funding for bitcoin purchases as TD Cowen sees warrant-related stock pressure easing.
Bitcoin didn’t blink. Even after U.S.-listed spot Bitcoin ETFs bled $681 million in outflows last week — the worst weekly drain since June — the coin climbed back above $84,000 and basically refused to collapse.
Why It Matters
The resilience of Bitcoin amid significant ETF outflows underscores its growing maturity as an asset class, suggesting that investors may be increasingly viewing it as a store of value rather than merely a speculative investment. This stability could indicate a shift in market sentiment, where institutional investors, despite the recent withdrawals, maintain a long-term outlook on Bitcoin’s potential, reinforcing its role in diversified portfolios. Furthermore, such price resilience during turbulent market conditions could attract new capital, ultimately supporting Bitcoin’s broader adoption and integration into traditional financial systems.
As of Monday, Bitcoin traded near $84,050. It had dipped to around $83,500 earlier in the session, then bounced. Sunday’s intraday high sat at roughly $84,145, so Monday’s recovery brought it close to that ceiling again. Not a breakout. Not a crash. Just Bitcoin doing its stubborn thing while institutional money walked out the door.
Nine of Ten Top Coins Push Higher
The broader market didn’t wait around for Bitcoin to lead. Nine out of the top ten cryptocurrencies moved higher within the last day, a sweep that’s hard to ignore. Avalanche led the pack with a 5.1% gain, reaching $10.91. Chainlink added 2.4%, landing at $13.35. Solana picked up 1.2%. BNB, XRP, Dogecoin, and Cardano all posted gains too — smaller ones, but gains.
Analyst Purvang Mashru flagged the move as a sign of growing optimism among investors. It’s the kind of broad-based rally that tends to get dismissed as noise, but when almost every major token is green at once, it’s probably worth paying attention.
Ether and XRP also showed rising investor interest, per the source data. So it’s not just Bitcoin carrying the load here. The appetite seems wider than that.
ETF Outflows Hit Hardest Mid-Week
The $681 million in ETF outflows didn’t spread evenly across the week. Most of it hit on Wednesday and Thursday, two days that clearly spooked institutional desks. Vikram Subburaj, CEO of Giottus Exchange, pointed to the volatility in ETF flows as a sign of cautious sentiment among big-money players. Cautious is probably the right word. Not panicked. Not exiting permanently. Just cautious.
Mashru added context on the macro side: U.S. Treasury yields hit 24-year highs as of October 9. That’s not a small detail. When yields climb that high, risk assets across the board come under pressure — equities, crypto, anything that competes with a suddenly attractive bond market. Bitcoin holding above $84,000 through that kind of rate environment is, at minimum, notable.
Both Mashru and Subburaj landed on the same number when asked about downside risk: $82,000. That’s the key support level. If Bitcoin drops through it, the upward trajectory gets a lot harder to defend. For now, it’s holding well above that line.
The next data point everyone’s watching is U.S. inflation figures due October 14. That report could shift things fast, either reinforcing the cautious institutional mood or giving Bitcoin bulls a reason to push harder.
Oil, Sanctions, and Geopolitical Noise
Oil markets added a layer of complexity to an already messy week. WTI futures fell 1.8% to $90.28 Monday, a drop tied partly to an announcement from former President Donald Trump about a deal with Russia. The agreement involves supplying 300,000 metric tons of diesel fuel to markets and partially eases U.S. sanctions on Russian oil.
Trump framed it as an “energy ceasefire” between Russia and Ukraine. Ukrainian officials pushed back hard, saying they weren’t part of any such discussions. And strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure kept happening anyway, which makes the “ceasefire” framing feel shaky at best.
For crypto markets, the oil story matters because energy prices feed into inflation expectations, and inflation expectations feed directly into what the Fed does next, and what the Fed does next is basically the single biggest macro variable for Bitcoin right now. It’s all connected, even when it doesn’t look like it.
The partial easing of Russian oil sanctions introduces new supply dynamics that traders are still trying to price in. Unclear yet whether that pushes inflation up or down — the answer probably depends on how much of the deal actually gets implemented versus how much stays on paper.
Treasury yields at 24-year highs. ETF outflows at their worst since June. Oil markets in flux because of a geopolitical deal that one side says doesn’t exist. And Bitcoin still sitting above $84,000.
Avalanche up 5.1%. Chainlink up 2.4%. The $82,000 support line holding.
Hub: XRP price, news, and analysis
Frequently Asked Questions
What support level are analysts watching for Bitcoin?
Both Purvang Mashru and Vikram Subburaj, CEO of Giottus Exchange, identified $82,000 as the critical support level Bitcoin needs to hold to maintain its upward trajectory.
How large were last week’s Bitcoin ETF outflows and when did they peak?
U.S.-listed spot Bitcoin ETFs saw $681 million in outflows last week — the largest since June — with most of the damage concentrated on Wednesday and Thursday.
Strategy chair Michael Saylor teased investors watching Sunday for a signal of the company’s recent Bitcoin purchases with the message “There’s always room for more orange,” in a post on X.
However, any official notification via a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission won’t likely come before Tuesday, as federal offices will be closed on Monday for the Columbus Day holiday.
Strategy ended September by spending more than six times its weekly Bitcoin (BTC) buying budget on its repurchases of one of its preferred stocks. Strategy bought 334 Bitcoin (BTC) for $28.7 million between Sept. 28 and Oct. 4, bringing its holdings to exactly 848,000 BTC, according to an Oct. 5 8-K form.
Over the same period, Strategy repurchased about 1.77 million shares of its STRC preferred stock for $176.3 million.
Raise cash now, buy Bitcoin later
To be sure, Strategy’s recent moves could be read as an indication that management can build up cash now and spend it on BTC later.
Independent analyst Shanaka Anslem Perera on Saturday noted that Strategy raised $5.41 billion from new common shares in the third quarter and ended the period with 1,666 more BTC than it held at the end of June.
In his monthly newsletter on Bitcoin and crypto, Perera wrote that Strategy’s SEC filings “allocate 9.5% of the raise directly to bitcoin purchases. Other disclosed uses included a dollar reserve, cash, dividends and preferred-share buybacks.”
“The question for investors is what the financing left behind. For a shareholder, bitcoin per share is only part of the answer. Cash counts too, while debt and preferred shares have claims ahead of common stock,” he wrote.
“During the third quarter Strategy raised billions through share sales, but much supported cash reserves and preferred shareholders. Raising capital does not necessarily mean buying bitcoin,” he told Cointelegraph on Sunday..
“That does not mean they stopped buying BTC. Cash retained can fund later purchases, and strengthening the balance sheet can benefit shareholders.”
Magazine: Former SEC boss made AI Czar, Bitcoin may hit $600K this cycle: Hodler’s Digest
Bitcoin’s October 7 morning market readings showed roughly $143 million in Bitcoin futures positions liquidated over the preceding 24 hours and a price range that dipped below $84,000. The positive US ETF session could not predict whether leveraged positions would survive their margin tests.
CoinGlass reported a BTC futures liquidation total of $143,016,790 at 06:53 UTC.
The 24-hour price range included a low of $83,647. CryptoSlate’s Bitcoin price page showed the price at around $84,288 during EU trading hours, down 1.25% over 24 hours.
US spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $118.8 million in net inflows for October 6, according to Farside Investors after a net outflow for October 5.
Why positive fund flows are no price floor
Liquidation responds to the trader’s margin position as prices change. Bybit’s liquidation rules use mark price, the exchange’s reference price for margin calculations, rather than the last trade. The trigger varies by margin mode.
Nor does a daily ETF inflow represent a standing bid at a guaranteed Bitcoin price. BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF, or IBIT, uses authorized participants creating or redeeming baskets for cash or Bitcoin in its prospectus. While the fund seeks to track Bitcoin’s price, the flow figure alone cannot show when or where an equivalent spot purchase occurred.
Subtracting ETF inflows from liquidation notional would therefore reveal no net buying or selling balance. Fund demand and forced closures can coexist without establishing that derivatives selling overwhelmed ETF buying.
For traders, the remaining question is whether enough leverage has cleared to ease further liquidation pressure. The fresh total confirms forced closures, but CoinGlass’s single open-interest reading, a measure of outstanding futures exposure, provides no comparable before-and-after view.
Gross spot volume leaves a similar gap: turnover alone does not show whether net buying weakened. The next useful signals are changes in outstanding positions and directional spot trading measured on the same venues over the same interval. Those would help distinguish cleared leverage from persistent selling pressure.
The SEC’s proposed custody rules could make it easier for investment advisors to help clients own Bitcoin directly. Coinbase’s Ryan VanGrack explains why institutional capital tends to flow where there are clearer rules, and why he sees direct ownership and ETFs as “both and, not either or.” He also shares why traditional finance is accelerating its push into Bitcoin and digital assets.
Chapters:
00:00 Coinbase Wins CFTC Approval for Its Own Clearinghouse
01:29 Can SEC Guidance Last Without the Clarity Act?
02:40 SEC Custody Proposal: Helping Advisors Hold Bitcoin Directly
04:14 Tokenization: The Biggest Upgrade Since Electronic Trading
05:41 How Tokenization Cuts Out Wall Street’s Middlemen
07:34 What Washington Still Needs to Fix for Bitcoin Holders
08:56 Institutional Adoption Accelerates After the Clarity Act Vote
11:07 How Coinbase Is Bringing Digital Asset Infrastructure to Community Banks
12:01 Sponsor: Square
12:34 Is Crypto Really a Tool for Illicit Finance?
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this show are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of BTC Inc., Bitcoin Magazine, or any affiliated entities. This content is provided for informational and educational purposes only and should not be construed as investment, legal, tax, or accounting advice. Nothing contained in this show constitutes a solicitation, recommendation, endorsement, or offer to buy or sell any securities or financial instruments. Viewers should consult their own advisors before making financial or business decisions.
The International Monetary Fund has praised El Salvador for improving its economy — but scolded it at the same time for its ongoing Bitcoin experiment.
In a statement Friday, the IMF said that it had approved a $139 million disbursement to the Central American nation while also trying to “reduce the state’s involvement in Bitcoin-related activities.”
El Salvador in 2021 made Bitcoin legal tender, much to the ire of the IMF and other major institutions. The Latin American country was at the time negotiating a development loan with the agency.
The IMF in September said that El Salvador wasn’t buying bitcoin; the country’s Bitcoin Office has repeatedly said that it does buy the cryptocurrency.
“Economic activity has exceeded expectations, supported by sustained improvements in security and investor confidence, as macroeconomic imbalances continue to be addressed,” the IMF said.
It continued: “However, certain performance criteria were not met, including on the Bitcoin accumulation front, for which waivers were granted based on strong corrective measures and renewed commitments.”
The IMF further said that the Salvadoran state’s involvement in Bitcoin-related activities is being unwound and that “no further bitcoin accumulation is envisaged beyond the documented donations.”
Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele in 2022 said the country would buy one bitcoin per day but it was never clear where the money was coming from — or if he was actually buying at all.
The IMF said in September that El Salvador was — at least for some time —not using public funds to accumulate bitcoin but rather had received bitcoin from private donations.
El Salvador and the IMF entered a $1.4 billion loan agreement at the end of December but the fund asked for the country to scale back certain aspects of its Bitcoin strategy.
The Salvadoran state gifted its citizens bitcoin in 2021 and debuted a wallet with the hope of getting more citizens using the cryptocurrency in the dollarized country.
President Bukele in 2024 admitted that Salvadorans weren’t using the cryptocurrency to buy things as expected, but always boasted that the government was still stacking sats.
Las Vegas, NV, October 1st, 2026, Chainwire
Lowest Fee Bitcoin ATMs announced the launch of more than 400 cryptocurrency ATMs across the United States. The machines allow customers to purchase Bitcoin, Ethereum, USDT and USDC with cash at a stated flat 5% fee. Customers can also pre-register online before visiting an ATM.
Lowest Fee Bitcoin ATMs, a new nationwide low-fee Bitcoin ATM operator, launched today with an initial rollout of more than 400 Bitcoin ATMs across the United States, a footprint that places it amongst the largest Bitcoin ATM operators in the country on its first day. It also launched with a name that does most of the marketing department’s job for it. The brand charges a flat 5% Bitcoin ATM fee to buy Bitcoin, Ethereum, USDT or USDC with cash, displays the fee and exchange rate on screen before the customer confirms, and, as of today, lets first-time customers register online in about two minutes so they can skip onboarding at the machine entirely.
400+ Bitcoin ATM locations on day one
Most Bitcoin ATM operators in the U.S. run a few dozen machines. Lowest Fee Bitcoin ATMs opens with more than 400 Bitcoin ATM locations in the convenience stores, gas stations and shopping centers people already visit, with machines in Florida, California, Arizona and Texas among other states, as the first phase of a larger rollout.
“Four hundred machines is not a pilot. It’s a network,” said Quincy Mathis, Operations Manager at Lowest Fee Bitcoin ATMs. “We wanted to be one of the biggest Bitcoin ATM operators in the country on the day we opened, because a low fee only matters if there’s a machine near you. This is phase one.”
Buy Bitcoin, Ethereum, USDT and USDC with cash: coins, limits and one fee
Every Lowest Fee Bitcoin ATM sells Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC) for cash, all at the same 5% fee, all sent directly to the customer’s own wallet. No bank account or credit card is needed. The machines are non-custodial: the company never holds customer funds.
Bitcoin ATM daily limits are set by verification tier:
- Tier 1, phone number only: up to $2,000 per day
- Tier 2, government ID and Tax ID: up to $50,000 per day
Bitcoin ATM fees compared: what $1,000 buys
The typical Bitcoin ATM in the United States charges roughly 12% to 15% to buy, and some of the largest national brands charge 20% or more. Here is what that looks like when a customer walks up with $1,000 in cash:
Illustrative, based on posted percentage fees only and before exchange rate. Many operators add an exchange-rate markup on top of the posted fee; Lowest Fee Bitcoin ATMs shows both the fee and the rate on screen before a transaction is confirmed. Industry figures reflect publicly reported U.S. Bitcoin ATM fee ranges. See how the Bitcoin ATM fees compare.
At a 20% machine, one dollar in every five never becomes crypto. At Lowest Fee Bitcoin ATMs, it’s one in twenty. The name is not subtle; neither is a 20% fee.
“We wanted a rate people can look at on the receipt and feel good about, not one they have to make peace with,” said Quincy Mathis. “Five percent, shown up front, with the exchange rate right next to it. That’s the whole pitch.”
Stablecoin ATMs are becoming the way people send money overseas
A growing share of customers are using the machines as USDT and USDC ATMs, buying dollar pegged stable coins to send money to family and friends overseas and to pay suppliers and contractors abroad. A customer inserts cash, the stable coins arrive in the recipient’s wallet within minutes, and the recipient holds dollars they can keep or cash out locally. No wire counter, no multi-day wait, and no bank account needed to send.
That makes the fee gap matter more, not less. Someone sending $1,000 home once a month pays about $600 a year in fees at a 5% machine, $1,440 to $1,800 at a typical machine, and $2,400 at a 20% machine. The difference is real money to the people who can least afford to lose it, which is why low fees matter most to remittance customers.
“The people using stable coins to support family abroad are exactly the people who shouldn’t be paying 20% for the privilege,” said Quincy Mathis.
How to use a Bitcoin ATM: four steps, under two minutes, now with online pre-registration
New with today’s launch is online Bitcoin ATM pre-registration. First-time customers can pre-register online before they ever visit a machine, so the first visit is as fast as the tenth. At any of the 400+ machines, they simply enter their phone number.
- Register online, once. About two minutes on a phone.
- Walk up and enter your phone number. The machine recognizes you. No paperwork at the kiosk.
- Pick a coin, scan your wallet, insert cash. Scan your wallet’s QR code and feed in the bills.
- Check the screen and confirm. The fee and exchange rate are displayed before you press anything. Crypto lands in your wallet within minutes.
Customers who would rather register at the machine still can. It just takes a little longer, and the company would like to gently point out that it no longer has to. A full walkthrough of how a Bitcoin ATM works is on the company’s website.
Compliance, briefly
Lowest Fee Bitcoin ATMs is a FinCEN-registered money services business, and every machine operates in compliance with federal and state regulations. Customer data is encrypted, and transactions are non-custodial and irreversible. No government agency, bank, utility or tech-support line will ever ask anyone to pay them at a Bitcoin ATM; if someone does, it is a scam. Common questions are answered in the company’s Bitcoin ATM FAQ.
Find a low-fee Bitcoin ATM near you
Lowest Fee Bitcoin ATMs are live now at 400+ locations across the United States, with further phases of the rollout to follow. Customers can find a Bitcoin ATM near them and pre-register at lowestfeebitcoinatms.com. New customers can use code LOWEST at the machine for 20% off the transaction fee, which brings the fee on that $1,000 transaction down to $40.
About Lowest Fee Bitcoin ATMs
Lowest Fee Bitcoin ATMs is a nationwide low-fee Bitcoin ATM operator whose initial network of more than 400 machines ranks among the largest in the United States. Customers can buy Bitcoin, Ethereum, USDT and USDC with cash for a flat 5% fee, with the fee and exchange rate displayed on screen before every transaction. The company is a FinCEN-registered money services business. Users can learn more at lowestfeebitcoinatms.com.
Contact
Marketing Director
Brian S. Smith
Lowest Fee Bitcoin ATMs
support@lowestfeebitcoinatms.com
Veteran trader Peter Brandt called October 4 as the day Bitcoin’s bear market would end, but now he thinks the market beat him to it.
“There’s a good possibility we have seen the low and now are entering a new bull market cycle in Bitcoin,” Brandt tells Cointelegraph on the latest episode of Trade Secrets.
In July, Brandt warned that prices could fall into the high-$40,000 range. Bitcoin was trading near $64,000 when that interview was published and climbed to almost $85,000 by his latest appearance.
With the benefit of hindsight, Bitcoin’s fall to around $58,000 in late June may have already marked the cycle bottom.
But that doesn’t rule out a sharp drop first, says Brandt, who is on the lookout for a possible pullback toward $65,000 or $66,000 in early October.
“One thing that could happen, of course, is we just had too many people now chase the market,” he says. “They have bought the idea that the Bitcoin low is in and they have loaded up on the rally.”
A pullback could shake out those late buyers and give investors an opportunity to build their positions.
“We all know Bitcoin doesn’t go straight up.”
Related: Bitcoin’s ‘narrative vacuum,’ Ethereum now inevitable: Trade Secrets
Brandt sees Bitcoin hitting $500,000 this cycle
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 the $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 says.
A million-dollar Bitcoin by 2030 isn’t impossible in his view, but he doesn’t need that target to come true for the trade to work. Brandt says he hasn’t invested all the money he has earmarked for Bitcoin. He would be content with 70% of that allocation in the market for 70% of the move into the projected 2029 highs.
“If Bitcoin’s $350,000 in late 2029, I’m not gonna be a million-dollar bull,” he says.
Price move ‘explanations’ are often wrong
Brandt is also wary of using headlines about the CLARITY Act or other events to explain every price move. He looks at the timing and pace of previous market cycles to gauge what could come next.
“Markets do something, traders need to create a narrative. More often than not, the narrative is at least partially wrong,” he says. “Let price be king.”
His model places the halving roughly halfway in time between the bear market low and the next peak. He expects gains to accelerate toward the end, with the final three or four months potentially delivering about 30% of the total increase.
Brandt’s forecast assumes a new bull market is already underway and that Bitcoin’s historical cycle patterns broadly hold. For now, finding the next buying opportunity with manageable risk matters more to him than whether Bitcoin reaches $100,000 by year-end.
“It’s unimportant,” he says. “I think more important is can we identify the next tradable spot where one can have somewhat of a measured risk?”
Brandt questions XRP’s investment appeal
Brandt is famously dismissive of many altcoins and he says the thesis of investors tipping money into “some fool coin” like XRP is often wrong.
XRP’s usefulness for payments and Ripple’s banking partnerships don’t automatically make it a winning investment in his eyes.
“Just because something is transactional, that doesn’t mean automatically that it must be more valuable,” he says, comparing it to the US dollar.
It works for payments, but people don’t buy it simply because they expect its transactional usefulness to push up its value.
Related: HYPE price could suffer as Binance takes its revenue: Alice Liu
Ether and Solana get a warmer reception, with room for both alongside Bitcoin in his suggested crypto portfolio allocations. Chasing the next new token is another matter.
“Don’t be sold on the new upstarts, don’t be conned into the latest fast horse in the game,” he says.
For financially secure investors, he suggests a crypto allocation of up to 10%, with Bitcoin taking the largest share.
“I believe that trading is a marathon, not a sprint.”
Magazine: THORChain under fire over Bitget, ETH evolves beyond blockchain: Hodler’s Digest
Cointelegraph publishes long-form journalism, analysis and narrative reporting produced by Cointelegraph’s in-house editorial team with subject-matter expertise. All articles are edited and reviewed by Cointelegraph editors in line with our editorial standards. Some articles contain affiliate links, from which Cointelegraph may earn a commission. These relationships do not influence which products we review or our editorial conclusions. Content published in here does not constitute financial, legal or investment advice. Readers should conduct their own research and consult qualified professionals where appropriate. Cointelegraph maintains full editorial independence.
You don’t have to own Bitcoin to make money from people getting excited about it. On X, just posting about it can be a business in itself, and the company now wants £207,384 back from people it alleges took that business a bit too far.
In its Sept. 17 lawsuit, X accuses Vivek Kumar Sen, Zamyang Sherpa, and unidentified operators of running a coordinated account network that manipulated engagement to collect creator payments.
If £207,000 seems like very little money for a company the size of X, that’s because it absolutely is. So why is a company that was bought for $44 billion suing a couple of guys for literally pennies?
The stakes here are the principles behind its (often controversial) payment program and the potential cost of allowing other users to copy the (alleged) behavior. Paying creators gives people a reason to publish, but if manufactured popularity pays too, the company then risks funding the very activity it wants to remove from people’s feeds.
Bitcoin can fall while the posts keep paying
The basic arrangement is straightforward: X pays eligible creators for attracting an audience, with views from paying subscribers contributing to earnings. The account essentially gets paid for the attention it gets, more or less regardless of what it or its audience says or does.
That means that someone writing about Bitcoin has a much different set of incentives from someone buying Bitcoin. Buyers just want the price to go up, but posters (for lack of a better word) can get attention anytime they want just by posting content that’s bound to enrage or entice their audience.
There’s nothing inherently dishonest about that. Newspapers and TV also earn money from audiences through good markets and bad ones. But readers should understand the arrangement, especially when a post feels like friendly advice from someone who shares their enthusiasm.
Short attention spans mean a lengthy announcement or analysis is unlikely to attract hundreds of thousands of views, so users who want a quick, immediate burst of attention resort to publishing clickbait-y headlines. Then, publishing versions or sometimes even word-for-word copies of that headline through multiple accounts gives the same material a better chance of finding an audience.
X alleges the accounts in this case went even further by coordinating their posts and interactions. One example in its filing puts the same posts from @Vivek4real_ and @TrendingBitcoin just 11 seconds apart. It also alleges connections between payment records and devices used by the accounts.
Those connections are more relevant than speed alone. Independent people reacting to the same announcement can publish almost simultaneously, and X’s rules allow multiple accounts with different purposes. The abuse X accused these users of involves making coordinated activity look like independent engagement and collecting money from it.
Most readers can’t see who receives an account’s payments or which devices operate it. They see different names, different pictures, and many verified accounts that appear to agree with one another.
Small bill, expensive habit
X’s public explanation of the lawsuit shows that protecting the creator monetization program is at the center of the case. In his announcement of the lawsuit, general counsel James Burnham said the company will act against fraud to protect its platform and legitimate creators’ earnings.
That makes deterrence the main reason for the lawsuit. X has a reason to discourage this kind of behavior before more people decide it’s a business worth copying. Recovering one set of payments can also show users that the consequences extend beyond just losing an account.
If getting caught means only being banned, the money already collected could make the attempt worthwhile. Being pursued for repayment and legal costs makes that a significantly less attractive deal.
The principle also has a commercial purpose. Creators who spend hours producing original work need to believe the platform can distinguish their audience from manufactured activity, and readers need a feed they want to keep opening. Paying for behavior that frustrates both groups would undermine the product X is trying to sell.
CryptoSlate previously covered ZachXBT’s criticism of paid anti-bot measures, including his argument that scammers could afford verified accounts. The same economic logic applies here: an entry fee offers little protection against someone who expects to earn much more once inside.
The defendants didn’t manipulate Bitcoin’s price or entice anyone to make BTC purchases. The case against them only involves the abuse of creator payments.
However, the posts could still have affected users. The posts wouldn’t need to publish lies to get engagement and mislead their readers, either. Imagine a company says it’s considering buying Bitcoin. Immediately after the original announcement, five or more verified accounts say that the company bought Bitcoin, and all of the posts have a significant amount of engagement from verified users that confirm the purchase happened. A random user encountering those posts could very reasonably think that the purchase did happen, as it looks like the information is coming from several independent sources.
That experience extends well beyond crypto. Health advice, political claims, and celebrity rumors can all seem more convincing when they appear to come from several places. Bitcoin adds an immediate financial temptation because readers can act on what they’ve seen within minutes, while the people circulating it may already be earning from the attention.
Paying people to add something
X has begun replacing the program involved in the lawsuit with Original Content Rewards. Existing revenue-sharing participants could earn through Sept. 7, and applications for the replacement began rolling out Sept. 8. The transition predates the filing, so it can’t be presented as a consequence of this case.
The new rules exclude copied material and lightly rewritten versions of someone else’s work, while allowing commentary that adds the author’s own perspective. Artificially generated views don’t qualify for payment either.
The new regime makes sense: give people a financial reason to contribute something. Applying it, however, is much harder. Someone who adds a joke to an announcement has contributed their own words; someone who explains a condition buried in the document has given readers information that could affect how they understand it. Both are commentary, but they do different work.
Originality doesn’t guarantee accuracy, either. People can write completely original nonsense, while an account quoting an official document may be giving readers exactly what they need. Good aggregation earns its audience by saving people time and directing them toward evidence.
Under the new program’s terms, X controls payment calculations and can withhold earnings for manipulation. How it uses that power will determine whether creators trust the replacement. Removing copycats could reward people doing better work, but mistaken exclusions could also cut off legitimate income. Creators need explanations they can understand and a way to contest errors.
CryptoSlate’s coverage of X’s links to crypto exchanges examined the shorter route from reading about an asset to trading it. Creator payments put another person earning money along that route, before the reader has bought anything.
X can pursue repayment and make abuse more expensive, but the incentive to chase attention will survive this lawsuit. Its task is to make careful, original work worth paying for. The reader’s task is simpler: check whether those five enthusiastic accounts have brought five pieces of evidence, or just five opportunities for someone to earn from the same announcement.
Block has joined the x402 Foundation and contributed a Bitcoin Lightning payment specification, adding a Bitcoin option to an open standard for payments by AI agents, the company announced Sept. 24. The x402 repository merged the specification on Sept. 23. Its author, Ben Carman, is a Bitcoin and… Read the full story at The Defiant
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