Inflection Points: When Push Comes to Shove: Investing with the Return of Mercantilism - Global X ETFs

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.

Skip to main contentCrypto NewsOct 23, 2026, 12:36 a.m. EDT3 min readCardano holders are being asked to bet $5 million on copper hitting a new record. (Shutterstock)SummaryToto Finance is seeking 22 million ADA, or about $5 million, from Cardano’s treasury to buy and tokenize copper, with voting set to close Nov. 15. Copper would need to rise about 49.4% for the treasury to recover its investment if the full budget is spent and ADA’s dollar price remains unchanged. The proposal would use more than half of Cardano’s remaining withdrawal allowance, while Toto could receive up to 3.36 million ADA and retain commercial rights to its separately funded tokenized-copper business. Cardano’s community treasury is being asked to spend about $5 million on a copper reserve whose costs would leave the metal needing to rise nearly 50% just to recover the original investment under the proposal’s assumptions. Toto Finance, a company that turns physical commodities into blockchain tokens, wants 22 million ADA for what it calls the Cardano Strategic Copper Reserve. Voting closes Nov. 15.

Bitcoin Core is changing how it handles security vulnerabilities, explaining that large language models have made certain software flaws significantly easier to discover. In an email to the Bitcoin Development Mailing List on Thursday, Bitcoin Core developer Antoine Poinsot said that in the past, vulnerabilities were generally kept under lengthy disclosure embargoes to give users time to upgrade before details became public. Maintaining that secrecy generally meant fixes could not be backported to older software versions, leaving users waiting until the next major release. However, Poinsot said LLMs have made some flaws so easy to rediscover that delaying fixes offers little protection. “The embargo period achieves little but it delays the availability of a fixed release,” said Poinsot. “We are therefore updating our policy disclosure to accommodate those.”The change comes as AI-assisted security research puts pressure on developers across Bitcoin’s software ecosystem. Under the updated policy, vulnerabilities deemed “easily discoverable” will receive fixes as soon as possible across all maintained major versions, with security advisories published alongside the updates.

Skip to main contentCrypto NewsOct 22, 2026, 11:13 p.m. EDT2 min readBitcoin's price bounce. (CoinDesk)SummaryBitcoin recovered to nearly $82,000 during Asian trading Friday as gold, Asian stocks and Nasdaq futures rebounded while the Japanese yen surrendered early gains. About $435 million in cryptocurrency futures positions were liquidated over 24 hours, including $385 million in bullish bets, as bitcoin tested its 50-day moving average. Persistently high oil prices and weak demand for spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds, which recorded $381 million in outflows Thursday, could limit a broader rally in risk assets. Bitcoin BTC$84,459.46 and gold (XAU) pared losses during Friday’s Asian hours alongside a recovery in stocks as the Japanese yen gave up early gains. The largest cryptocurrency by market value recovered to nearly $82,000 after hitting lows below $81,000 overnight, according to CoinDesk data. At the time of writing, bitcoin was testing its 50-day simple moving average, a widely followed gauge of near-term market momentum. Other cryptocurrencies, such as ether ETH$2,490.55, XRP (XRP), solana (SOL), and dogecoin DOGE$0.08295 saw similar moves.