Gold dropped 6.8% on October 21, recording its steepest single-day decline in 12 years after reaching a record high of $4,381 per ounce. Tether minted $1 billion USDT within 24 hours, according to blockchain data. Institutional investors allocated $619 million into Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs with zero outflows, suggesting potential capital rotation from traditional assets into digital currencies.

Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller directed staff to explore granting stablecoin firms limited access to Fed payment systems through restricted master accounts. The proposed framework would enable direct settlement on central bank infrastructure without traditional banking intermediaries. Speaking at the Fed's inaugural payment innovation conference, Waller acknowledged that distributed ledgers and crypto-assets have become integral to mainstream financial infrastructure.

Coinbase launched Payments MCP on Wednesday, enabling AI models including Claude and Gemini to execute wallet operations, fiat conversions, and stablecoin transfers through natural language commands. The company also introduced its Coinbase One Card in the United States, offering bitcoin cashback rewards of up to 4% for subscribers.

Evernorth announced a SPAC merger exceeding $1 billion in October, positioning the entity as the largest publicly traded XRP treasury globally. The firm is targeting a Nasdaq debut under ticker XRPN in early 2026. Ripple's $1 billion acquisition of GTreasury aims to integrate Fortune 500 treasury infrastructure with the XRP Ledger for corporate cross-border settlements.