Crypto Pulse—Industry Perspectives

Visa and Mesh will let you spend crypto and stablecoins at 175M+ merchants without a separate card. See how it works, what is still unconfirmed, and what to do now. PrefaceAround 774 million people worldwide own crypto, according toCrypto.com research. Yet very little of it ever reaches a checkout counter.On October 19, 2026, Visa and crypto payments network Mesh announced a partnership aimed at fixing that. The Visa Mesh partnership is designed to let users of participating wallet apps pay

BlackRock's IBIT took in $665.2M in one day, its biggest since Oct 2025. Here's what the Bitcoin ETF inflow means for price, institutions and you. PrefaceOn Monday, October 19, 2026, BlackRock Bitcoin ETF inflows hit a standout number: the iShares Bitcoin Trust (ticker: IBIT), BlackRock's spot Bitcoin ETF, took in $665.2 million of net new money in a single trading day.According to SoSoValue data reported by The Block, that is the fund's largest daily inflow in the past year and its biggest sinc

Qubic has restarted its Layer-1 blockchain after an exploit drained roughly $1.4 million worth of QU tokens from 1,404 accounts. The network had been halted while its validators worked on a recovery plan, and affected users can now submit claims for potentially recoverable funds.The incident was linked to a weakness in the way some Qubic wallets generated recovery seeds. While the blockchain itself was not reported to have suffered a consensus-level compromise, the wallet issue gave an attacker

World ID for Zoom became available through the Zoom Marketplace on October 18, 2026. The integration is designed to display a Human Badge after the system checks that the person appearing on camera matches the holder of an Orb-verified World ID.The product addresses a genuine security problem. Synthetic video and audio are becoming harder to distinguish from real people, while virtual meetings are routinely used to approve fund transfers, discuss confidential information, recruit employees, and

J.P. Morgan expanded JPM Coin to the Ethereum mainnet on October 19, 2026. The US dollar-denominated token, identified by the ticker JPMD, had previously operated on Base, an Ethereum Layer 2 network, since November 2025.The expansion allows eligible J.P. Morgan institutional clients to move funds across two public blockchains compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine. Its intended uses include transfers between institutional clients, programmable treasury operations, and the settlement of di

Bank Indonesia began its monthly Board of Governors Meeting on October 20, 2026, with the policy decision scheduled for the second day on October 21. The October decision had not been announced when this article was prepared. The starting position is a 5.75% BI-Rate, a 4.75% Deposit Facility rate, and a 6.50% Lending Facility rate.The meeting comes as the rupiah trades around Rp18,000 per US dollar. JISDOR was recorded at Rp18,050 on October 19, weaker than Rp17,855 when the September decision w

PT Bank Central Asia Tbk resumed repurchases of BBCA shares from October 19 to 21, 2026. The transactions fall under a buyback program approved by shareholders on March 12, 2026, with a maximum program value of IDR5 trillion.The timing coincided with severe pressure on Indonesian equities. BBCA fell 6.86% to IDR4,820 on October 19, while the IDX Composite closed 3.64% lower at 4,996.61. Foreign investors recorded net selling of approximately IDR2.28 trillion in the regular market that day, accor

The Monetary Authority of Singapore, or MAS, opened a consultation on October 16, 2026 to expand membership of the Financial Industry Disputes Resolution Centre, known as FIDReC. The proposal covers all Major Payment Institution and Standard Payment Institution licensees, together with MAS-regulated stablecoin issuers after the relevant regulatory framework takes effect. The consultation closes on November 30, 2026. Source: MAS’s official consultation page.The proposal addresses a problem that o

The distributed value of tokenized stocks reached US$3.50 billion as of October 16, 2026, an increase of 24.15% over 30 days. The number of holders also rose by 18.82% to 4.42 million, according to the RWA.xyz Tokenized Stocks dashboard.The increase in value was not matched across other activity indicators. Monthly transfer volume fell by 72.73% to US$10.26 billion, while monthly active addresses declined by 59.98% to 1,386,288. More value was recorded in distributed tokens, but transfers and ad

Solana Accelerate Shanghai, originally scheduled for October 16, 2026, was postponed on the day it was due to begin. Solana Foundation President Lily Liu said registrations had quadrupled overnight and exceeded the attendance cap filed with local authorities.Organizers initially notified registered guests that the event had been delayed because of logistical considerations at the venue. Liu later provided a more specific explanation, saying the registration surge had moved expected attendance be