Crypto News: 3rd Week of October 2026 — BTC Recovery, Wallet Security Risks & AI in Crypto

October 24, 2026  ·  5 min read

After the previous week's sharp correction, Bitcoin staged a meaningful recovery while the security landscape worsened significantly. Researchers disclosed a new wave of wallet drainer malware, artificial intelligence was identified as a key driver of increasingly convincing phishing campaigns, and Solana notched a new weekly DEX volume record.

Bitcoin Bounces +5% to $67,000

Bitcoin opened the week near $63,800 — close to the previous week's low — before buyers stepped in decisively. By Thursday, BTC had recovered to $67,100, a gain of approximately 5.2% from the weekly open. The recovery was attributed to several converging factors:

• Spot Bitcoin ETF inflows returned, with BlackRock's IBIT recording its strongest inflow day in six weeks ($310M in a single session)
• On-chain data showed accumulation by wallets holding 100–1,000 BTC — a cohort often associated with high-net-worth individuals and family offices
• Miner selling pressure decreased, with the hash ribbon indicator flipping from sell to neutral

The recovery stalled near the $67,500 resistance level that had served as support before the previous week's break. Analysts noted that a sustained close above $68,000 would be needed to signal that the correction was fully exhausted.

Wallet Drainer Malware Spreading via Fake Browser Extensions

Security firm CipherTrace published a detailed report on a new family of wallet drainer malware distributed through counterfeit browser extensions in the Chrome Web Store and Firefox Add-ons marketplace. The malicious extensions impersonated popular tools including MetaMask, Phantom, and a Ledger companion app, accumulating over 230,000 combined installs before being removed.

Once installed, the extensions injected JavaScript into crypto-related web pages, intercepting transaction signing requests and redirecting outgoing funds to attacker wallets. Users saw a normal-looking confirmation screen while the actual destination address was replaced silently in the background.

How to protect yourself: Only install browser extensions from links found on the official project's website (not search results). Verify the publisher name and check that the extension has been available for more than a year with a substantial review count. Hardware wallets with display screens that show the actual destination address provide an additional verification layer that software-only solutions cannot.

AI-Generated Phishing Attacks Up 40% Year-on-Year

Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis released its Q3 2026 Crypto Crime Update, finding that AI-generated phishing attacks targeting crypto users had increased 40% year-on-year. The report identified three main attack vectors:

• Deepfake video calls — attackers impersonating exchange support staff or project founders to persuade victims to share seed phrases or move funds
• AI-written phishing emails — grammatically perfect, personalised to the victim's holdings using leaked data, with no spelling errors that previously made phishing easy to detect
• AI-generated fake project websites — convincing recreations of legitimate DeFi protocols used to trick users into approving malicious token contracts

Chainalysis estimated that AI-assisted crypto crime was responsible for approximately $1.8B in losses in the first three quarters of 2026, up from $1.3B in the same period of 2025.

Solana DEX Volume Reaches $3.2B Weekly

Solana's decentralised exchange ecosystem recorded $3.2 billion in weekly trading volume, driven primarily by activity on Raydium and Jupiter. The figure represented a 28% increase from the previous week and placed Solana DEX volume ahead of Ethereum's DEX volume for the third consecutive week when measured on a per-chain basis.

The activity was partly driven by a wave of new memecoins launching on Pump.fun, Solana's memecoin launchpad, which processed over 40,000 new token launches during the week. Critics noted that a significant portion of the volume was concentrated in tokens with less than 48 hours of trading history.

The broader crypto market cap closed the week at approximately $2.4 trillion, recovering from the previous week's dip to $2.25T.