CryptoQuant CEO calls rising Bitcoin hashrate ‘indirect bullish signal’ from institutions

Bitcoin is attempting to break through an “inflection frontier” that has historically triggered runs to new macro highs. Key points:Bitcoin (BTC) may continue to new all-time highs if it successfully breaks through its 20-month moving average at $87,165, CryptoQuant reported. The market cycle signals metric showed BTC/USD poised to reclaim this “inflection frontier,” which it lost in December 2025. CryptoQuant’s bull-bear market cycle indicator continued to show Bitcoin as being in a bull market. Analysis: Bitcoin “reset” complete as key trend line reappearsData from onchain analytics platform CryptoQuant reveals that BTC/USD has begun a fresh battle with its 20-month simple moving average (SMA). The 20-month SMA, at $87,165 as of Oct. 16, is the trend line around which the popular Bollinger Bands metric is constructed. This in turn forms the basis for CryptoQuant’s market cycle signals tool, which seeks to pinpoint Bitcoin’s position within its market cycle. Bollinger Bands uses standard deviation to add an upper and lower band around the 20-month SMA. Currently, these sit at $121,640 and $52,694, respectively.

Bitcoin’s network hashrate has climbed to a seven-month high despite major publicly traded miners shifting capacity toward artificial intelligence, suggesting other operators are replacing lost computing power and intensifying competition among remaining network miners. According to BlocksBridge Consulting’s latest Miner Weekly newsletter, Bitcoin’s seven-day average hashrate has recovered above 1 zettahash per second (ZH/s), equivalent to 1,000 exahashes per second (EH/s), its highest level since March 3. Hashrate measures the computing power securing the Bitcoin network. The recovery suggests that miners still operating on the network are seeing little relief from competition, despite the industry’s ongoing transition to AI workloads. Bitcoin’s mining difficulty increased 5.92% on Oct. 16, with BlocksBridge projecting another 5.16% increase at the next adjustment. If the estimate holds, difficulty will have risen roughly 11.4% across two consecutive adjustments. “That’s hardly the breathing room remaining miners might have expected from the AI migration,” BlocksBridge wrote, referring to the growing competition facing operators that have continued mining Bitcoin.

Ethereum developers have postponed the Glamsterdam hard fork on the Hoodi testnet after researchers identified gas-related security risks that could affect how existing smart contracts handle failed transactions. The Ethereum Foundation (EF) said that the upgrade, originally scheduled for Oct. 26, would be delayed to allow developers to investigate how some proposals interact with smart contracts deployed on Ethereum. On Oct. 13, Blockchain security firm ChainSecurity warned that two proposals included in Glamsterdam, EIP-8037 and EIP-8038, could weaken safeguards against a type of attack called insufficient gas griefing. The postponement raises uncertainty over Glamsterdam’s mainnet timeline. Ethereum developers had been considering early December, with plans to finalize a schedule following successful Hoodi testing. Gas changes could undermine existing smart contract safeguardsIn its analysis, ChainSecurity said that under the new rules, gas could be returned to a contract after an operation fails, allowing it to continue running when it previously would have stopped.

Skip to main contentCrypto NewsUpdated Oct 23, 2026, 1:06 a.m. EDTPublished Oct 23, 2026, 1:01 a.m. EDT2 min readPolymarket has fired its marketing chief. (Ron Lach/Pexels)SummaryPolymarket fired its chief marketing officer, Matthew Modabber, after an internal investigation into several incidents, including an alleged scheme involving fake trades, The New York Post reported. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is investigating claims that Modabber’s team created a webpage featuring videos of users profiting from fake trades, though no wrongdoing has been proved. Polymarket’s board reportedly concluded that Modabber was hindering efforts to improve the prediction market’s image as it considers a potential initial public offering. Leading decentralized betting platform Polymarket has fired its chief marketing officer, Matthew Modabber, who is also a close friend of the company’s CEO Shayne Coplan, according to the New York Post. The termination happened after an internal probe into several embarrassing episodes, including a reported scheme built on fake trades, that worried investors, the Post said, citing unnamed sources.

Skip to main contentCrypto NewsOct 23, 2026, 12:59 a.m. EDT2 min readEthereum delays Glamsterdam test after security devs flag risk to existing contracts. (Ethereum)SummaryEthereum developers postponed the Glamsterdam upgrade on the Hoodi test network after researchers found that proposed gas-accounting changes could alter how existing smart contracts handle failed transactions. ChainSecurity found that EIP-8037 and EIP-8038 could leave some contracts with more or less gas than expected, potentially making errors permanent or causing otherwise valid operations to fail. No replacement date has been announced for the Hoodi test or its planned 200 million gas limit, and Ethereum’s mainnet upgrade date remains unconfirmed. Ethereum developers have called off Monday's Glamsterdam upgrade on the Hoodi test network after security researchers identified a problem that could change how existing smart contracts handle failed transactions, potentially allowing errors to become permanent. The upgrade was due to activate on Oct. 26 at 17:42:48 UTC.