Bitcoin Steadies Near $78,000 as €100m French Bank Hack Flows Into Crypto

Security and oversight set the tone on Friday. Hackers took €100m from French lender Crédit Mutuel Arkéa and moved it rapidly into crypto, and a US banking regulator published its first supervisory framework for artificial intelligence. Digital asset prices recovered modestly overnight, but sentiment remains fragile after a losing week.

Markets at a glance

Bitcoin traded at $77,782, up 1.6% over 24 hours but still 4.5% lower on the week. Ether rose 2.2% to $2,294, trimming its seven-day decline to 3.4%.

XRP matched ether's daily gain, climbing 2.2% to $1.28, though it remains down 4.8% over seven days. BNB was the weakest of the large tokens on a weekly basis, down 7.0% at $698.29 despite a 0.6% rise in the past day. Tether and USDC held their $1 pegs.

The Crypto Fear & Greed Index stood at 28, in "Fear" territory. This suggests the overnight bounce has done little to restore confidence.

The stories that mattered

Hackers steal €100m from Crédit Mutuel Arkéa and race it into crypto. The Brittany-based bank says the money came from its own account and that customers are protected. Paris prosecutors are investigating. A blockchain investigator says slow reporting allowed more than $30m to get away, a reminder that response times matter once stolen funds reach public ledgers.

OCC issues first AI supervisory framework. The 22-page guidance tells bank examiners to judge AI systems by the harm a failure could cause rather than by their technical sophistication. Autonomous payment agents are ranked as the highest risk, and outside agents connecting to customer accounts are singled out for attention.

Altcoin short-term holders selling at a profit in just 12% of tokens. Glassnode data show profitable selling by recent buyers has collapsed from about 80% of tracked tokens in late September. A separate breadth measure indicates most major coins are still trailing bitcoin, consistent with this week's subdued market tone.

Palo Alto Networks and CrowdStrike: inside the cybersecurity rally. The two stocks are up 89% and 106% respectively in 2026, having hit records on 6 October before pulling back. Frontier AI models capable of finding software flaws, once seen as a threat to the sector, have become its biggest source of demand.

Voters in at least 29 US communities back limits on AI data centres. Ballot results from Ohio to Wisconsin point to hardening local resistance to the AI infrastructure buildout. Industry figures warn that broad moratoriums could damage the economy.

Acurast says 335,000 smartphones have joined its network. Decentralised networks including Acurast and Phase want idle phones to handle AI and web workloads. Sceptics counter that the devices are better suited to gathering real-world data than to serious computation.

What to watch

• Progress in the Paris prosecutors' investigation into the Crédit Mutuel Arkéa theft, and whether any of the funds moved into crypto can be traced or frozen.
• How banks respond to the OCC's framework, particularly its treatment of autonomous payment agents and third-party AI connecting to accounts.
• Whether altcoin profit-taking and breadth recover, or whether most major tokens continue to lag bitcoin.
• Further local votes on AI data centre development, and the industry's response to growing calls for moratoriums.