Crypto news of the week: a record hack and rising rates, 31 October to 7 November 2026

Week 45 of 2026 in simple English: Binance after the record hack, the US midterms, rate rises in the UK, and what is new on Cardano.

4 min read

Painting of a young woman in a green coat and a blue scarf reading her phone in a glass bus shelter on a rainy city evening, a coffee cup in her other hand

This week was mostly about trust. The biggest exchange in the world reopened after the largest crypto theft ever, and prices for energy and money went up again in Europe. On Cardano, the next big upgrade passed an important test.

Here are the ten stories I think matter most, the most important first.

Binance reopens withdrawals after the record hack

Crypto. On 1 November Binance let customers take their coins out again, after a theft of about $6.3 billion on 29 October. The FBI says North Korean hackers did it, and Binance says it is paying for the losses from its own funds, so this is a good week to remember that coins on an exchange are not in your own wallet.

Read the full story at The Guardian

Democrats win the US Congress, and crypto rules may wait

World. In the US midterm elections on 3 November, Democrats won control of Congress. Analysts now expect the Clarity Act, the big law that would set clear rules for crypto markets in the US, to stay on hold for a long time, and more questions about the president’s own crypto business.

Read the full story at CNBC

The Bank of England raises its rate to 4%

Finance. On 5 November the UK central bank raised its main interest rate from 3.75% to 4%, the first rise in more than three years. The reason is energy prices pushed up by the conflict in the Middle East, and the bank says this may not be the last rise. Higher rates usually make savings accounts more attractive and risky assets like crypto less so.

Read the full story at the Bank of England

Inflation in the euro area reaches 4%

Finance. Eurostat’s first estimate says prices in the euro area rose 4.0% in October compared with a year ago, up from 3.8% in September. Energy alone was 20.8% more expensive. This makes a rate rise by the European Central Bank more likely.

Read the full story at Eurostat

Cardano’s next upgrade runs on a test network

Cardano. On 2 November the DijkstraNet test network moved to protocol version 12 with node 11.2. This is the first full test of most features of the coming Dijkstra hard fork, the upgrade that will later bring Leios, a way to fit many more transactions into the chain. For mainnet, Intersect says node 11.2.1 comes soon and fixes a memory problem of the current version.

Read the full story at Intersect

Ethereum delays its next upgrade on a test network

Crypto. Ethereum developers stopped the Glamsterdam upgrade on the Hoodi test network after auditors found eight ways in which new gas rules could break existing smart contracts. The Ethereum Foundation asks developers to check their own projects before a new date is set. Careful delays like this are a normal part of upgrading a large chain.

Read the full story at the Ethereum Foundation

US employers add many more jobs than expected

Finance. The US economy added 165,000 jobs in October, almost three times the forecast of 59,000, and unemployment fell to 4.1%. A strong job market gives the US central bank less reason to cut interest rates soon, which markets watch closely.

Read the full story at CNBC

EMURGO will stop being a DRep on 30 November

Cardano. EMURGO plans to deregister its DReps (representatives who vote on Cardano governance for ada holders) on 30 November. If your wallet delegates its vote to EMURGO, you will need to choose a new DRep, and Intersect starts a “Check your DRep” campaign for this. If the word is new to you, I explained it in what is a DRep.

Read the full story at Intersect

Bitcoin funds lose more than $1 billion in three days

Crypto. US spot Bitcoin ETFs (funds that hold real bitcoin for stock market investors) had about $1.16 billion of net outflows between 30 October and 3 November, mostly from one large fund. Bitcoin was trading around $76,000 to $77,000 at the time.

Read the full story at CryptoTicker

A second Cardano node can now make blocks outside test networks

Cardano. The 5 November release of Amaru, a new Cardano node written in Rust, no longer limits block making to test networks. It also adds a tag to show which node software made each block. More than one node program means one bug cannot stop the whole network, though Amaru is still in beta.

Read the full story at GitHub

If you read this far, you probably care how Cardano is run. I run BKV, a single pool with a 0% margin, and staking with it keeps your ADA in your own wallet. If EMURGO was your DRep, you can look at my votes as Alex BKV on cardanodrep.org, each one with a short public reason. Whoever you choose, any honest pool and any active DRep helps Cardano.