BlocktivityOctober 26, 2026

Alpenglow Arrives, and Solana's Count Falls 30.5%

The board's total fell 28.2%, Fogo handed second place to Lighter, and Bitcoin briefly dipped below $80,000 while its fees sat near the floor.

Solana switched on Alpenglow, its biggest network change since 2020, and the board’s total recorded transactions fell 28.2% in the same week. Bitcoin briefly slipped below $80,000. One question runs under both stories: did the networks actually get quieter, or did the way some of them record activity change?

Things that mattered

Bitcoin dips below $80,000

Bitcoin briefly slipped below $80,000 and crypto longs lost $404 million in four hours, The Block reported, as spot bitcoin ETFs lost $773 million on Thursday and Friday after three days of net inflows. CoinDesk linked the weekend pressure to U.S. Middle East evacuations and put bitcoin at its weakest level in more than a month.

Why it matters: Three days of fund inflows were undone within two sessions, so fund demand looks reactive rather than settled. (The Block, CoinDesk)

Big companies keep opting out of tokenized stock

Microsoft, Alphabet and Goldman Sachs joined the objections to the planned OKX-ICE tokenized stock venue early in the week. By Friday, Wells Fargo, Cisco and Marvell were among six more, bringing the total to 22, CoinDesk reported, citing Reuters.

Why it matters: The first venue under the SEC’s innovation exemption is meeting resistance from the very issuers it wants to list. (CoinDesk, Cointelegraph)

The OCC writes the first GENIUS Act rule

The OCC published its final stablecoin rule under the GENIUS Act, effective Jan. 18, dropping a proposed presumption on third-party rewards arrangements, The Block reported. The American Bankers Association accused the regulator of undermining Congress.

Why it matters: The OCC is the first of several agencies to finish its rules, so the banks-versus-crypto fight over rewards has moved from Congress to the rulebooks. (The Block, CoinDesk)

Narrative vs Network

While prices slid, the clearest match between headlines and ledgers came from the XRP Ledger. Franklin Templeton added $150 million in fund shares there, in two subscriptions that nearly quadrupled the fund’s tokens on the network (CoinDesk), and Malaysia and Thailand joined a cross-border stablecoin initiative involving Ripple (The Block). On-chain, recorded transactions rose 40.6% to 3.38M a day, up from 2.40M. This week the headlines and the network pointed the same way.

The scoreboard

Higher up, the order changed. Fogo’s provisional count fell 52.1% to 110.6M a day, ending a run that had taken it from 32.2M to 230.6M in two weeks, and that handed second place to Lighter, steady at 138.0M (+3.1%). Further down, Bitcoin SV entered the top 10 in tenth after its count rose 233% to 2.58M a day, while XPR Network and IOTA dropped out.

The reality check

The biggest move of the week came from a chain that kept its rank. Solana stayed first, but its provisional daily average fell 30.5%, from 429.4M to 298.2M. That single drop is more than half of the board’s entire 28.2% decline. The leader kept its crown and shed nearly a third of its count.

The timing coincided with Alpenglow, which went live on Oct. 21, replacing TowerBFT and cutting finality from 12.8 seconds to about 150 milliseconds (The Block). CoinDesk described it as a replacement for the voting system Solana had used since 2020 (CoinDesk). Solana’s count had long included the votes validators cast on blocks, the machinery that just changed. This week’s average still mixes days from before and after the switch, so 298.2M is a halfway mark, not a landing.

Bitcoin pulse

Bitcoin recorded 708,757 transactions a day, down 5.8%. Estimated hashrate rose 5.4% to about 1,007 EH/s. Fees stayed near the floor, at a mean of 1 sat/vB, the same as the week before.

One number

4.43M. WAX Blockchain recorded 4.43M transactions a day, up 15.7%, enough to enter the top 10 in sixth, ahead of TON Blockchain. WAX’s market cap is about $21.3M; TON’s is about $3.53B.

Keep an eye on

Solana’s first full week after Alpenglow. Next Sunday’s average will be the first with no pre-upgrade days in it, and it shows whether 298.2M was the floor or a stop on the way down.
Bitcoin’s difficulty adjustment, currently estimated at +4.99% around Oct. 29, as the estimated hashrate keeps climbing.

Next Sunday, Solana gets its first clean week under the new system, and that number becomes the yardstick for everything the chain records from here.