Crypto.com answered one question on Oct. 22, 2026. The House Oversight Committee had asked a different one, with a deadline of Oct. 13, 2026. Crypto.com named Mohammed Mortajine its chief compliance officer. He spent his career at Western Union, ACI Worldwide and Paysafe, three payment companies and zero crypto exchanges1. The House Oversight Committee wanted proof that Crypto.com can catch inside trading on its own markets3. Ten stories from Oct. 21 to Oct. 24, 2026, follow.
A Payments Veteran Takes the Compliance Seat
Mortajine's résumé holds banks and payment firms. He oversaw compliance programs in more than 200 countries at his three employers. Crypto exchanges hold zero entries on that list before this week12. Mortajine called the job a chance to build something new. “I'm excited to join at this moment and build upon this foundation transforming the function into a world-class compliance operation, earning the trust of regulators, partners, and consumers as the company continues to grow,” he said. Chief executive Kris Marszalek praised the pick. “We are incredibly excited to welcome Mohammed to build the next generation of global financial compliance operations,” Marszalek said.
Mortajine replaces Antonio Alvarez, Crypto.com's compliance chief since 2020. Alvarez left in August for Binance. He became deputy to Chief Compliance Officer Noah Perlman there. Duncan DeVille led financial-crime compliance at Crypto.com. He joined Binance that same month4.
That deadline, Oct. 13, 2026, passed nine days before the hire. The House Oversight Committee had asked Crypto.com for every document on how it screens trades on prediction markets for inside information3. Chairman James Comer signed the letter himself. “A growing pattern of insider trading activity on prediction market platforms indicates that Congressional action may be necessary,” Comer wrote. Congress wants proof that Crypto.com can catch a bad trade before it settles. Crypto.com's answer, so far, is one new executive's résumé.
Nine Crypto Stories Landed in Three Days, Oct. 21 to Oct. 23, 2026
Dated events in this brief, Oct. 21 to Oct. 23, 2026
Read the chart as a table
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| Oct. 21, 2026 | Solana's Alpenglow goes live. Finality falls from 12.8 seconds to about 150 milliseconds. |
| Oct. 22, 2026 | Crypto.com, Bybit and JPMorgan post news. Crypto.com names its compliance chief, Bybit wins its Dubai license, and JPMorgan's funds reach Solana. |
| Oct. 23, 2026 | New York, Bitcoin Core and Ethereum move. New York seeks $1.37 billion from NovaTech, Bitcoin Core changes its bug policy, and Ethereum delays Glamsterdam. |
Cysic's Hacker Skips a 10% Deal
A hacker rejected a deal on Oct. 23, 2026. Cysic's foundation had offered one the day before: return 275.872 ether and keep 30.652 ether, worth about $73,000, as a reward7. The hacker answered instead. He moved 300 ether and 30.4 BNB, worth about $743,700 combined, into Tornado Cash. The service mixes many users' coins together.
The theft itself happened Oct. 17. An attacker found a flaw in Cysic's bridge and minted 10 million CYS tokens, 1% of the total supply. Cysic blacklisted the receiving address within 76 minutes and froze about 2.8 million of those tokens7.
A New Policy Answers AI Bug Hunts
Bitcoin Core rewrote its own rules on Oct. 22, 2026. The old policy kept some bug reports secret for up to a year. A new route ships a fix right away when AI can find the same bug with one prompt5. Chaincode Labs developer Antoine Poinsot wrote the proposal. “We recently experienced an increase in the number of reports for security vulnerabilities that can be easily (re-)discovered,” Poinsot wrote.
Sixteen volunteers on the Bitcoin Red Team scanned 390 projects in July. The Red Team found 4,962 potential flaws. Of those, 85 were critical5. A bug in the Coldcard hardware wallet alone cost users about $114 million across four sweeps before this policy changed.
A Security Find Delays a Testnet Upgrade
Ethereum Foundation developers pushed back their own deadline. Glamsterdam's upgrade to the Hoodi test network was due Oct. 26. Developers postponed it on Oct. 23 instead6. The security firm ChainSecurity found the problem. Two changes inside the upgrade, called EIP-8037 and EIP-8038, change how contracts pay for computing power. ChainSecurity found 13 real contracts where a failed operation could get stuck instead of staying open to retry.
The researcher pcaversaccio called the risk serious in an Oct. 21 GitHub comment6. Developers have set zero new date for Hoodi.
A Judgment Tops What NovaTech Ever Collected
New York wants more money than NovaTech ever collected. Attorney General Letitia James is seeking $1.37 billion from Cynthia and Eddy Petion, NovaTech's founders8. The couple collected $1.16 billion in crypto deposits between 2019 and 2023, then fled the country before a default judgment landed in August 2025. James called the scheme a pyramid. “NovaTech and AWS Mining scammed thousands of vulnerable New Yorkers by telling them they were making a safe investment when in reality, they were victims of a pyramid scheme,” James said.
New York's NovaTech Claim Tops Collections, Filed Oct. 23, 2026
Dollars in New York's Oct. 23, 2026, filing against NovaTech's founders
- Sought: $1.37B
- Collected: $1.16B
Source: The Block [8].
Read the chart as a table
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Collected | $1.16B |
| Sought | $1.37B |
Four promoters already agreed to pay nearly $6 million and left the securities and crypto industries permanently8.
A 3-Year Wait Ends in Dubai
Bybit waited three years for one license. Dubai's Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority, known as VARA, is the emirate's crypto regulator. VARA granted the exchange a full license for spot trading on Oct. 22, 20269. Bybit opened its global base in Dubai in 2022. Two earlier licenses sat idle: a minimum viable product license from June 2023 and a provisional license from September 2024. Derivatives trading, the exchange's bigger business, stays outside this license.
Chief executive Ben Zhou welcomed the approval. “Dubai has made significant progress in building a regulatory environment for virtual assets, and we are pleased to take this next step in our journey here,” Zhou said9.
A 12.8-Second Wait Shrinks to a Blink
Solana cut its wait from 12.8 seconds to about 150 milliseconds. Its Alpenglow upgrade went live at roughly 14:50 UTC on Oct. 21, 2026, at block 459,653,00010. Votor, the system behind the change, replaced TowerBFT, the consensus method Solana ran since it launched. Validator costs fell too, to 0.8 SOL per epoch.
Qualified Investors Reach JPMorgan's Funds on Solana
JPMorgan followed its own funds to a second chain. Its asset management arm brought two tokenized money market funds, MONY and JLTXX, to Solana on Oct. 22, 202611. Both funds launched first on Ethereum in December 2025. Qualified U.S. investors can now reach them through Solana addresses too. JPMorgan Asset Management manages $4.8 trillion. The market for tokenized funds holds about $35 billion.
A Ledger Widens Beyond the Dollar
Circle widened its ledger beyond the dollar. Its Gateway service added support for cirBTC and EURC on Oct. 23, 2026, alongside USDC12. A user now holds one balance per asset. That balance moves across chains in under 500 milliseconds after a deposit settles. EURC now reaches six networks: Arc, Avalanche, Base, Ethereum, Solana and World Chain. CirBTC reaches two, Arc and Ethereum.
Korea's Biggest IT Contractor Signs an Oracle Deal
Chainlink signed Korea's biggest IT contractor. LG CNS is the technology arm of LG Group. Chainlink's oracle network will power its Korean won stablecoin systems, the companies said Oct. 22, 202613. South Korea's digital asset market holds $68 billion. The Korean won trades second only to the U.S. dollar in global crypto volume.
Hongkeun Kim, who leads LG CNS's digital business division, framed the moment plainly. "Korea's financial infrastructure is entering the tokenization era," Kim said13. LG CNS already runs Project Hangang, the Bank of Korea's digital currency pilot, for about 80,000 customers across seven banks.
What to watch
Watch whether Crypto.com answers the House Oversight Committee's requests in full. Its reply should also name Mortajine's own screening plan for event contracts. Ethereum's Hoodi testnet carries Glamsterdam once ChainSecurity clears the gas changes it flagged. Cysic's frozen 2.8 million tokens remain a test of whether a blacklist holds against a patient attacker. Ben Zhou's next target is a Dubai license covering derivatives, the segment Binance already holds there.
Sources
- Crypto.com, "Crypto.com Appoints Mohammed Mortajine as Chief Compliance Officer," Crypto.com, Oct. 22, 2026, https://crypto.com/en/company-news/cryptocom-appoints-mohammed-mortajine-as-chief-compliance-officer
- Finance Magnates, "Crypto.com Names Mohammed Mortajine Compliance Chief after Alvarez Exit," Finance Magnates, Oct. 22, 2026, https://www.financemagnates.com/executives/moves/cryptocom-names-mohammed-mortajine-compliance-chief-after-alvarez-exit/
- James Comer, "Letter to Kris Marszalek, Chief Executive Officer, Crypto.com," U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Sept. 29, 2026, https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Crypto.com-Letter-09.29.26.pdf
- Law360, "Binance To Add 2 Compliance Veterans From Crypto.com," Law360, Aug. 25, 2026, https://www.law360.com/articles/2517762/binance-to-add-2-compliance-veterans-from-crypto-com
- Shaurya Malwa, "Bitcoin will now stop hiding bugs an AI can find in one prompt," CoinDesk, Oct. 23, 2026, https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2026/10/23/bitcoin-will-now-stop-hiding-bugs-an-ai-can-find-in-one-prompt
- Ezra Reguerra, "Ethereum Delays Glamsterdam Testnet Fork Over Gas Security Flaws," Cointelegraph, Oct. 23, 2026, https://cointelegraph.com/news/ethereum-delays-glamsterdam-testnet-fork-gas-security-risks
- Abdelaziz Fathi, "Cysic Exploit Wallet Sends $744,000 in Crypto to Tornado Cash," FinanceFeeds, Oct. 23, 2026, https://financefeeds.com/cysic-exploit-wallet-sends-744000-in-crypto-to-tornado-cash/
- Brian Danga, "New York seeks over $1.3 billion from NovaTech founders after couple fled the US," The Block, Oct. 23, 2026, https://www.theblock.co/news/regulation/2026-10-23-new-york-seeks-over-1-3-billion-from-novatech-founders-after-couple-fled-the-us-424453
- Blockhead, "Bybit Secures Full VARA Licence for Spot Trading in Dubai," Blockhead, Oct. 23, 2026, https://www.blockhead.co/2026/10/23/bybit-secures-full-vara-licence-for-spot-trading-in-dubai/
- Solana Compass, "Solana Alpenglow Live on Mainnet: TowerBFT Retired, Anza's 150ms Finality and What Changes," Solana Compass, Oct. 21, 2026, https://solanacompass.com/news/solana-alpenglow-is-live-on-mainnet-as-anza-retires-towerbft-at-slot-459653000
- KuCoin News, "J.P. Morgan Expands Tokenized Money Market Funds to Solana," KuCoin News, Oct. 23, 2026, https://www.kucoin.com/news/flash/j-p-morgan-expands-tokenized-money-market-funds-to-solana
- Circle, "Circle Gateway Now Supports cirBTC and EURC," Circle, Oct. 23, 2026, https://www.circle.com/blog/circle-gateway-now-supports-cirbtc-and-eurc
- Maisie Morrison, "Chainlink Partners With LG CNS to Expand Korean Won Stablecoins," Blockonomi, Oct. 23, 2026, https://blockonomi.com/chainlink-partners-with-lg-cns-to-expand-korean-won-stablecoins