This week in crypto brought a mix of explosive price moves, regulatory debate, security incidents, and major infrastructure developments. Quant led the market’s gainers with a 148% weekly surge, while Lighter was among the biggest losers. In Europe, more than 50,000 people backed calls for changes to MiCA’s stablecoin reward rules, as regulators pushed in the opposite direction. Elsewhere, NEAR Intents reported a $3.8 million security breach, Base rolled out its Cobalt upgrade for tokenized assets, and Bloomberg launched a new stablecoin data dashboard for Terminal users.
Top gainers and losers of the week
- Quant (QNT) – extended its incredible rally to lead the market, skyrocketing by 148.18% over the last seven days to hit $243.17;
- Midnight (NIGHT) – posted a massive week of gains, surging 81.80% to lock in at a price of $0.0447;
- Pump.fun (PUMP) – maintained its continuous upward momentum, advancing 41.50% across the seven-day period to reach $0.005905.
- Lighter (LIT) – experienced a sharp pullback, dropping 24.52% over the course of the week to settle at $3.79;
- Pieverse (PIEVERSE) – gave back gains after recent rallies, sliding 14.03% to close at $1.38;
- Zcash (ZEC) – faced downward market pressure throughout the seven-day stretch, losing 13.66% of its value to trade at $1,388.25.
50,000 Europeans push EU to allow stablecoin rewards
More than 50,000 Europeans urged the European Commission to loosen stablecoin reward restrictions as part of its MiCA review, according to crypto advocacy group Stand With Crypto EU, whose consultation campaign closed Wednesday.
MiCA currently prohibits issuers from paying interest on stablecoins, a rule Stand With Crypto argues disadvantages the products against bank deposits. The group said more than 126,000 people have signed a petition calling for a more permissive approach, and its consultation response generated more than six times the responses submitted to the ECB's digital euro consultation.
"We are calling on the Commission to use the MiCA review to allow regulated stablecoins to offer rewards to holders," Stand With Crypto EU general manager Harry Pearce Gould said in the statement. On whether Europe should follow the US model, he said: "The US has made a clear choice to back stablecoins as the settlement layer for tokenisation. Europe doesn't need to copy that, but it does need to compete with it."
The campaign arrives as the European System of Central Banks separately called on September 22 for the interest prohibition to extend to lending, borrowing, and staking arrangements, pushing in the opposite direction from Stand With Crypto's proposal.
NEAR Intents loses $3.8M in security breach
NEAR Intents suffered a security breach on October 1 that resulted in approximately $3.8 million in lost user funds, caused by a bug in the Omni deposit and withdrawal infrastructure's interaction with the NEAR Intents smart contract.
"The preliminary report indicates the total loss of approximately $3.8M. These funds will be compensated in full," NEAR Intents said on X.
Earlier today NEAR Intents services were stopped after a security incident was detected. The incident was caused by a bug in the Omni deposit and withdrawal infrastructure interaction with NEAR Intents smart contract.
— NEAR Intents (@near_intents) October 1, 2026
The preliminary report indicates the total loss of…
The contract-side vulnerability has been patched, with NEAR Intents and near.com expected to resume operations within an hour of the announcement. Deposits and withdrawals across eleven networks, including BSC, Polygon, TON, and Avalanche, remained unavailable for an additional 12 hours while fixes to Omni infrastructure were completed.
Blockchain investigator ZachXBT traced the stolen funds to KuCoin, where they were bridged to Bitcoin. No attacker had been publicly identified at the time of reporting.
The breach came days after NEAR Intents assisted Bitget following that exchange's $388 million security incident, blocking $50 million and freezing more than $500,000 tied to the attack. Bitget CEO Gracy Chen had speculated North Korean hackers were responsible for that breach. NEAR Intents said the latest incident has been reported to law enforcement, with a detailed report expected in the coming days.
Base launches Cobalt upgrade for tokenized assets
Base activated its Cobalt upgrade on Wednesday, adding conditional transactions and new issuer controls for tokenized assets as the Ethereum layer-2 network deepens its push into onchain finance.
Cobalt, Base's third major upgrade, expands the network's B20 token standard by letting issuers stack several compliance checks onto the same asset, such as requiring recipients to pass identity verification, qualify as accredited investors, and clear a sanctions screening simultaneously. Issuers can also schedule corporate action adjustments, like stock splits, that update share counts displayed in wallets without minting, burning, or altering underlying balances.
The upgrade also permits issuers to grant authorized administrators the ability to move tokens from a holder's wallet without that holder's approval, attaching a public note to the transfer. Base said issuers control whether this feature is enabled and who can use it, and that Base itself cannot initiate such transfers.
A separate addition, Validity Transactions, lets traders submit transactions that only become eligible for inclusion once specified onchain conditions are met, such as a swap that activates only if an asset hits a target price before a block deadline. Base said these transactions can remain private until included in a block.
The upgrade builds on Base's July 8 launch of B20 as a native token standard, which Coinbase used on August 25 to issue tokenized US stocks for Apple, Nvidia, Meta, and Alphabet.
Bloomberg Terminal launches stablecoin data dashboard
Bloomberg launched a stablecoin dashboard on its Terminal, giving financial professionals access to onchain data tracking stablecoin supply, issuance and transaction activity.
The dashboard, powered by blockchain data platform Allium, covers stablecoins with more than $100 million in circulation, representing over 98% of the market, according to Bloomberg's Wednesday announcement. Users can compare stablecoins by supply, mints, burns, transfer volume and velocity, and break down activity by blockchain network and peg type, including fiat currencies and commodities.
The dashboard is available to all Bloomberg Terminal users through RWAS <GO>, placing onchain data directly alongside the platform's existing fixed-income, foreign exchange and money-market tools. The Terminal is widely used by banks, asset managers and other financial professionals for real-time market data, news, analytics, trading and communications.
Bloomberg has carried Bitcoin pricing since 2014 and now provides pricing, reference data, identifiers and benchmarks for 50 cryptocurrencies, positioning the stablecoin dashboard as an extension of infrastructure it has built over more than a decade rather than a first entry into crypto data.
The launch arrives as stablecoin market capitalization has risen above $306 billion, according to DeFiLlama data, with Tether's USDT accounting for roughly 60% of the total market.
Tanya Petrusenko
Disclaimer: All materials on this site are for informational purposes only. None of the material should be interpreted as investment advice. Cryptocurrency investments involve significant risk of loss. Please note that, despite the nature of much of the material created and hosted on this website, HODL FM operates as a media and informational platform, not a provider of financial advisory services. The opinions of authors and other contributors are their own and should not be taken as financial advice. If you require advice, HODL FM strongly recommends contacting a qualified industry professional.
