Jay Clayton’s appointment to lead a new US “Super Intelligence Force,” Peter Brandt’s more bullish Bitcoin outlook and a series of security and infrastructure developments dominated this week’s crypto news, according to Cointelegraph. The roundup also covered NEAR’s recovery of funds linked to an exploit, Blast’s decision to wind down and Ethereum’s next testnet upgrade.
Clayton’s new role draws crypto criticism
President Donald Trump has named Jay Clayton, the US director of national intelligence, to lead the federal government’s new Super Intelligence Force. Trump said on Truth Social that the group would coordinate the government’s efforts to keep the United States at the forefront of “super intelligence.”
Clayton previously chaired the Securities and Exchange Commission during Trump’s first term. On his final day in that role, the SEC brought a securities-selling case against Ripple. Clayton also served as US attorney for the Southern District of New York, where he led the criminal trial involving Roman Storm over Tornado Cash.
Storm criticised the appointment, saying it did not appear to point toward a future supportive of open-source artificial intelligence. Separately, Elon Musk is renaming SpaceXAI as SpaceXSI in response to Trump’s directive to use “super intelligence” rather than “artificial intelligence.”
The appointment therefore links a senior US intelligence role with a former securities regulator whose earlier decisions remain closely watched in the crypto industry, particularly by Ripple supporters and Storm’s backers.
NEAR recovers exploited funds while decentralisation debate grows
NEAR’s SHIELD AI system blocked funds connected to a Bitget hack from being moved through NEAR Intents, the network’s cross-chain swaps platform. The system also helped stop a separate exploit worth $3.8 million, which was attributed to a flaw involving the interaction between the Omni deposit and withdrawal infrastructure and a NEAR Intents smart contract.
NEAR Intents general manager Alex Shevchenko gave the exploiter 48 hours to return the funds. The money was subsequently sent back. Shevchenko urged people who might consider presenting themselves as “white hat” hackers to use bug-bounty programmes rather than disrupt live services.
The intervention has intensified an argument over how much control decentralised platforms should exercise when stolen assets pass through them. The response contrasted with THORChain, which has declined to block swaps on its platform, citing decentralisation principles. Questions also remain over whether SHIELD’s ability to block funds could create legal exposure if a future incident occurs.
NEAR had more than doubled over the preceding month amid improving sentiment, but the source report said it was down 11% for the week. Bitwise’s NEAR exchange-traded fund also began trading during the week, recording almost $60 million in inflows.
Blast winds down as Ethereum prepares Glamsterdam
Ethereum layer-2 network Blast said it would shut down after its operating costs exceeded the revenue generated by the chain. The project said it could see no credible route to economic sustainability and asked users to withdraw assets to Ethereum’s mainnet.
Founded by Blur creator Tieshun “Pacman” Roquerre in November 2023, Blast initially attracted users with native yield on Ether and stablecoins, alongside a points programme linked to an expected token airdrop. Deposits exceeded $2 billion before the mainnet launched in February 2024. Its decentralised-finance total value locked later fell by more than 98% from its June 2024 peak, according to DeFiLlama data.
Ethereum developers, meanwhile, have scheduled the Glamsterdam upgrade for the Sepolia testnet on October 6. Operators must update both execution-layer and consensus-layer clients before activation. The planned changes include bringing proposer-builder separation into the protocol, adding block-level access lists and enabling parallel processing by clients to improve throughput.
Bitcoin outlook turns more bullish
Veteran trader Peter Brandt has raised his forecast for Bitcoin’s next major peak. After warning in July that the cryptocurrency could fall into the high-$40,000 range, Brandt now says the market may have completed its low and entered a new bull-market cycle.
He told Cointelegraph that Bitcoin could reach between $300,000 and $600,000 by late 2029, compared with his earlier July range of $250,000 to $300,000. Brandt said the cycle had a strong chance of reaching $500,000. These are his projections, not a guarantee of future performance.
Arthur Hayes, chief investment officer at Maelstrom, separately argued that monetary expansion is likely because of the cost of financing artificial-intelligence data centres, the US debt burden and financial stress in France. He also discussed the possibility of monetary stimulus in China.
Market picture and security risks
Moneyiar market data at 2026-10-05 09:38-09:39 +03:30 showed Bitcoin at $85891.926079728, up 0.79% over 24 hours and 4.02% over seven days. XRP was $1.5109262028, up 0.78% in 24 hours and 2.08% over seven days. Official Trump was $2.062380197, up 1.51% over 24 hours and 3.81% over seven days, while Four was $0.2833382973, down 0.75% and 2.87% over those periods.
The source report put September’s crypto hack losses at more than $766 million. PeckShield counted 55 major incidents and estimated losses of $766.5 million, while CertiK recorded 97 incidents and estimated $768.4 million. The month included the $388 million Bitget hack and a $320 million Liquid Network hack; more than $270 million was later returned, according to reports.
A separate exploit drained about $305,000 from two Safe multisig wallets through a third-party adapter built on Aave. Aave founder Stani Kulechov said Aave v3 itself was unaffected. Tether also said it helped authorities freeze nearly $550 million in Iran-linked USDT during 2026, after a Senate investigation alleged that USDT was widely used in wallets connected to Iran.
