Lighter closes in on Solana as Washington changes hands

Democrats won both chambers of Congress, sending crypto’s Washington strategy back to the drawing board, while the fallout from Binance’s record hack kept arriving. On the network, the week’s question sits at the very top of the board: Lighter, valued at a sliver of Solana, now records almost as many transactions.

Things that mattered

Democrats sweep Congress

Democrats won the House to secure control of Congress and will take over House committees in January 2027, Cointelegraph reported. The Block wrote that after two years of a pro-crypto climate in Washington, the industry faces a sharp political jolt, and CoinDesk reported that more than a third of the Fairshake super PAC’s spending missed its mark.

Why it matters: The CLARITY Act now has to find its way through committees that change hands in January. (Cointelegraph, The Block, CoinDesk)

Binance’s hack keeps unfolding

Binance’s incident report traced the $6.3 billion breach to a fake job interview and an internal AI tool, The Block reported. Elliptic said the hackers swapped stolen tokens for $124 million in bitcoin, with $2.85 billion still frozen. The exchange’s CFO then stepped down nine days after the hack; co-CEO Yi He said the transition had been planned for six months.

Why it matters: The attack has turned hot-wallet safety into a public contest, with rival exchanges now publishing how much of their assets they keep offline. (The Block, The Block, The Block, Cointelegraph)

Treasury cuts off MEXC

FinCEN ordered US financial institutions to stop processing transfers involving MEXC Global over an alleged $16 billion in illicit transactions, Cointelegraph reported. The Block tied the flows to Iran, North Korea and Russia; CoinDesk noted that the order rests on MEXC’s alleged role in Russian illicit finance.

Why it matters: A crypto exchange is now cut off from the transfer rails of US banks, and every institution that touched it has to stop. (Cointelegraph, The Block, CoinDesk)

Narrative vs Network

Away from Washington, Solana had a crowded week in the news. Samsung Wallet launched USDC accounts on Solana for US Galaxy users (The Block), Schroders brought an emerging-markets bond fund onto the chain (CoinDesk), and a Solana event in Shanghai was halted over unauthorized promotion (Cointelegraph). On-chain, Solana’s transactions rose 2.2%. The headlines pulled in opposite directions; the network simply kept its pace.

The scoreboard

Below the leaders, two new names joined the top ten by very different routes. Bitcoin SV returned to the main board in eighth after a change of tier, even as its provisional count fell 38.3% to 4.42M a day: the spike of recent weeks has cooled without disappearing. XPR Network took tenth on a 45.5% rise to 2.71M. IOTA and MegaETH dropped out to make room.

The reality check

Which brings us back to the top, and the week’s question. Lighter recorded a provisional 149.05M transactions a day, up 11.5% from 133.7M the week before. Solana still leads, at 151.5M.

What makes the race remarkable is the price tag. Lighter’s market cap stands at about $811 million against Solana’s $52.9 billion. That works out to roughly $5 of market value for each daily transaction on Lighter, and $349 on Solana. Nearly the same count, wildly different valuations: whatever each chain is recording, the market is weighing it on a very different scale.

For most of the autumn, second place looked like a comfortable distance behind. Another week like this one, and the board has a new name on its first line.

Bitcoin pulse

Bitcoin’s hashrate is estimated at 989.4 EH/s, down 4.8% over the week. Fees stayed near the floor, averaging 1.7 sat/vB against 1.1 the week before. The chain now sits 74,936 blocks from its next halving.

One number

64.5%. Fogo’s daily count fell by that much, to 16.8M, a slide larger on its own than the net decline across every tracked chain combined, yet it still held third place.

Keep an eye on

• Bitcoin’s next difficulty adjustment, estimated at -4.67% and due around Nov. 13, would be the first to reflect this week’s dip in estimated hashrate.
• Fogo’s third place: Aptos, at 14.6M a day and rising 8.3%, is now close enough behind to make the next ranking a contest.

Next Sunday, the most interesting number on the board may be the smallest one: the distance between first and second.