Decentral Block Post

Ethereum staking protocol Lido Finance has disclosed its protocol saw 20 slashing events due to a series of infrastructure and signer configuration issues from validators operated by Launchnodes.

The incident occurred on Oct. 11 at about 3:30 pm UTC, according to Launchnodes. In an Oct. 11 post on X, Lido said Launchnodes' validators nodes are now offline, and slashings have ceased while the root cause was being investigated.

The slashing took place on the Ethereum blockchain and Lido projected the impact to be around 20 Ether (ETH), worth $31,000, as well as additional penalties while the validators are offline for troubleshooting, along with inactivity penalties that the validators will accumulate.

Slashing is a process where a validator breaches a blockchain’s proof-of-stake consensus rules, which often results in the removal of that validator or slashing a portion of the staked-Ether that they provided as collateral.

In a post hours later, Launchnode said the slashing events occurred due to an infrastructure and signer configuration issue.

Since September, Chainlink (LINK) price has gained more than 25%, outperforming Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and most altcoins. Currently, the project is the leading decentralized blockchain oracle solution and ranks 15th in terms of market capitalization when excluding stablecoins. 

In September, LINK's price surged by an impressive 35.5%, but in the month-to-date performance for October, LINK has faced a 10% correction. Investors are concerned that breaking the $7.20 support level may lead to further downward pressure, potentially erasing all the gains from the previous month.

It's worth noting that the closing price of $8.21 on Sept. 30 marked the highest point in over 10 weeks, but when looking at the bigger picture, Chainlink's price still remains 86% below its all-time high in May 2021. Moreover, over the past 12 months, LINK has shown little growth, while Ether (ETH) gained 21.5% in the same period.

LINK marines placed all their hope on the SWIFT experiment

The LINK bull run began after SWIFT, the leader in messaging for international financial transactions, released a report on Sept. 31 titled "Connecting Blockchains: Overcoming Fragmentation in Tokenized Assets," suggesting that linking existing systems to blockchains is more feasible than unifying different central bank digital currencies (CBDC).

Following a series of tests, SWIFT reported its capability to provide a single access point to multiple networks using existing infrastructure. This system relied on Chainlink's Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP) and was said to significantly reduce operational costs and challenges for institutions supporting tokenized assets.

Buyers are finding it difficult to maintain Bitcoin (BTC) price above $27,000. The selling increased after the September producer price index rose 0.5% for the month versus expectations for a 0.3% increase. This shows that the inflation pressures are unlikely to ease in a hurry for the United States economy.

The uncertain near-term environment has shifted analysts’ focus to November and the upcoming halving event expected in April 2024. Crypto analyst Miles Deutscher cited a chart from CryptoCon and said that if history repeats itself, then Bitcoin may turn up by November 21 and start its journey higher to the next halving.

Going further ahead to 2026, BitMEX founder Arthur Hayes is even more bullish. While speaking as a guest on Impact Theory with Tom Bilyeu, Hayes said that Bitcoin’s price could reach $750,000 to $1 million by 2026. Hayes argues that incessant money printing by the U.S. government to avoid a financial crisis will trigger a massive bull market in several asset classes.

Several analysts are bullish about the long-term but the near-term remains uncertain due to various headwinds. Could Bitcoin and altcoins stage a recovery or will they continue moving lower? Let’s analyze the charts of the top 10 cryptocurrencies to find out.

Bitcoin price analysis

After finding support at the 20-day exponential moving average ($27,227) for the past two days, Bitcoin broke below the level on Oct. 11. This shows that the bears are trying to seize control.