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Turkish police raided a residence in Istanbul’s Beşiktaş district on Oct. 14 and detained HEX founder Richard Schueler. The token’s market cap dropped from $561 million to $315 million inside a week — a $246 million wipeout.
Why It Matters
The move underscores how quickly a token’s valuation can unravel when a project’s founder becomes the focus of law enforcement action, especially in a market that is already sensitive to headline risk and confidence shocks. It also highlights the broader reputational and liquidity impact that legal scrutiny can have on closely identified crypto projects, where investor sentiment may deteriorate faster than fundamentals can be assessed.
The raid turned up $7.15 million in cash, firearms and ammunition, per Turkish Justice Minister Akın Gürlek. Authorities hit 15 related addresses in the same sweep and impounded nine luxury vehicles registered to Schueler’s wife. Seized property reportedly included 28 watches, 300 bags and 19 graphics cards — a strange haul that Turkish media was quick to splash across front pages. Interpol had already issued a Red Notice for Schueler two years back, after Finnish authorities sought his arrest over allegations of tax fraud and assault. A spokesperson for Finland’s National Bureau of Investigations declined to comment on the Istanbul detention. Turkish media have called Schueler “Whale James” and linked him to a $1 billion unregistered securities offering in the United States — but a U.S. judge dismissed that case in February 2025. HEX supporters say Turkish authorities haven’t confirmed whether Schueler was formally arrested or charged.
$246 million. Gone in a week.
Ledger’s New Device and a Supply Chain Mess
Ledger dropped a new hardware product called Atom — priced at $849, built like a smartphone, and designed to keep crypto wallet functions walled off from everyday Android apps. The launch came days after the company confirmed that wallets sold through a reseller in Asia had contained malicious implants. Ledger says Atom can detect tampering even when the device is switched off, and the company claims its protections would have blocked the implants involved in the Asia incident. The device is slated to support AI agent approvals, encrypted messaging and post-quantum cryptography. It’s expected to become available in summer 2027.
Not everyone bought the timing.
Former Mt. Gox chief executive Mark Karpeles said at least two people had warned Ledger about spyware in tampered devices as early as December 2025. He also pointed to a Ledger website post about the issue in March 2026 and accused the company of failing to lock down reseller supply chains. More than $90 million was stolen before Ledger suspended its reseller operations across Asia. Ledger chief executive Pascal Gauthier fired back on X, calling Karpeles “no white knight” and bringing up the Mt. Gox collapse. Karpeles replied — the source didn’t include what he said.
Ledger’s got a real problem here, and a shiny new device probably won’t fix the trust gap on its own.
Starknet’s Post-Quantum Gamble
Starknet opened a vote on flipping the network from an Ethereum layer-2 into a post-quantum layer-1. StarkWare chief executive Eli Ben-Sasson argued that Ethereum’s post-quantum roadmap could move too slowly given the pace of advances in artificial intelligence. More than 99% of votes cast so far favor the change.
Starknet’s token fell 46.7% over the week.
It had surged the week before, then lost nearly half its value. Quantum computing anxiety was part of the conversation around the vote, and that anxiety has some grounding. Google ran a process called “magic state cultivation” on its Willow quantum processor, cutting errors 40-fold and hitting 99.99% accuracy for a specialized quantum state. Theta Labs separately posted three quantum circuits it said could cut by 28% the number of qubits needed to break elliptic curve cryptography — relative to Google’s own estimate of 1,175 logical qubits. The vote on Starknet’s future remained open.
Markets, Funds and Rules
Bitwise chief investment officer Matt Hougan called the third quarter potentially one of the strongest in crypto’s history. Bitwise’s large-cap crypto index posted a 46.4% quarterly gain, and U.S. spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund inflows hit $6 billion, pulling year-to-date net flows back into positive territory.
Standard Chartered said stablecoin transaction activity kept climbing even as total market value stalled — meaning existing tokens were just moving around more often. The bank pushed its stablecoin market cap forecast of $2 trillion out to 2030, two years later than its earlier call. The market had plateaued at about $309 billion.
The European Banking Authority classified Circle’s USDC as a significant e-money token under the EU’s Markets in Crypto Assets framework. That classification has now been granted to 45 projects.
Binance.US is looking to raise as much as $100 million in a funding round that could value the exchange at $1 billion. That’s a sharp drop from the $4.5 billion pre-money valuation it secured in 2022, when it pulled in $200 million in seed funding.
At week’s end, Bitcoin was down 3.8% at $81,484. Ethereum had fallen 5.7% to $2,386. XRP dropped 8.3% to $1.28. Total crypto market cap sat at $2.72 trillion. Among the 100 largest tokens, Monero gained 9.7%, Injective rose 5.6% and Celestia advanced 5.1%. Pump.fun fell 27.1%, Raydium declined 26.5% — and Starknet’s 46.7% drop led the losers.
Index provider MSCI adopted rules that could push Strategy, Metaplanet and Upexi out of its global indexes, with other crypto treasury companies facing possible exclusion too. Strategy said back in August that funds tracking MSCI’s Global Investable Market Indexes held about 13 million of its shares — roughly 3.1% of basic shares outstanding and less than one day’s trading volume.
Russia will ban direct peer-to-peer cryptocurrency transactions between individuals starting July 1, 2027, requiring authorized intermediaries for those trades. Individuals also won’t be able to transfer crypto assets from digital accounts to their own non-custodial wallets, per the regulator.
Hub: Ethereum price, news, and analysis
Frequently Asked Questions
Why did HEX’s market value drop so sharply after the Istanbul raid?
HEX’s market capitalization fell from $561 million to $315 million — a loss of $246 million — during the week Turkish authorities detained founder Richard Schueler on Oct. 14 in Istanbul’s Beşiktaş district.
What is Starknet’s proposed change and how did the vote go?
Starknet opened a vote on converting from an Ethereum layer-2 to a post-quantum layer-1; more than 99% of votes cast favored the change, per StarkWare CEO Eli Ben-Sasson’s push for faster quantum readiness.
