Morning digest: November 1, 2026
Clocks fell back overnight, so enjoy the extra hour. Binance started reopening withdrawals this morning after saying it has covered about 95% of the $6.3 billion stolen, and the FBI formally blamed North Korea. Bitcoin is holding near $78,000. Health leads with athletes: a HIIT layer that lifts VO2max, a six-day interval block, and hamstring norms for masters athletes. Locally, Prince William won’t let Justice Department monitors inside polling places on Tuesday. And on Bainbridge Island, a 14-foot evil raccoon ran out of candy and handed out its own fur.
Blockchain: Binance reopens, the FBI names North Korea, more drains
Binance starts its phased withdrawal restart. Binance paused withdrawals Thursday after attackers drained about $6.3 billion from its hot wallets (the online wallets that fund withdrawals). On Sunday it began reopening them in phases: Bitcoin went first just after 06:00 UTC (1 a.m. ET), followed by Ethereum, BNB Smart Chain, XRP, Base, Dogecoin and Optimism, with only selected assets open on each so far. Phase one covers 15 networks, including Solana, Tron, TON, Polygon, Avalanche, Arbitrum and Sui. Binance says it has covered about 95% of the stolen amount by buying replacement tokens with part of SAFU (its emergency user fund), its futures insurance fund and company treasury; the last 5% is less-liquid tokens it is still sourcing. It says BTC, ETH, USDT, BNB, SOL, USDC, XRP, USD1, RLUSD and ZEC balances are fully backed, and a full zero-knowledge proof of reserves (a cryptographic check that customer balances are covered without exposing individual accounts) is due by Tuesday, Nov. 3. Deposits stayed open throughout. Expect delays and retries while the backlog clears (Binance; Reuters via Investing.com; CNBC).
FBI: North Korea’s TraderTraitor did it. In a Saturday alert, the FBI said the North Korean state unit it calls TraderTraitor, the group behind last year’s $1.5 billion Bybit hack, stole more than $6 billion from Binance on or about Oct. 29. Working with the Secret Service and IRS investigators, it sees the attackers converting the loot mainly into ETH and expects more laundering through DeFi and instant-swap services. It published the attacker addresses and asked THORChain node operators, RPC providers (the services wallets use to talk to blockchains), swap services, DeFi apps and analytics firms to block them. Until now, the North Korea link came from private investigators; this is the official attribution (FBI; AP).
Bitcoin holds near $78K after a rough week. Bitcoin trades around $78,000, slightly up on the day. On Friday, Coinbase shares fell more than 13% (also hit by weaker third-quarter revenue), Circle dropped over 9% and Strategy about 8%. US spot bitcoin ETFs saw about $643 million of outflows in one session and ether ETFs about $156 million, their fifth straight day of outflows. Total crypto market value is about $2.63 trillion (Cointelegraph; Seismyc).
b14g on Core: 97 million CORE drained by a “withdraw zero” bug. b14g is a Bitcoin-staking yield protocol on Core, a Bitcoin-aligned layer-1 chain. On Saturday an attacker pulled 97.05 million CORE in one transaction by requesting withdrawals of 0: Core’s staking logic read 0 as “withdraw everything,” so 91 staking orders paid out in full. b14g paused the affected contracts, exchanges froze about 9 million CORE, and staked BTC wasn’t affected; Core DAO says the chain itself wasn’t compromised. A textbook edge case: a value that means “all” was reachable from user input (Bitquery; TokenPost).
Briefly:
- Troves loses about 8.6 BTC to a retired contract. The Starknet yield manager’s xWBTC/WBTC vault was drained of about 8.6 BTC (roughly $670,000) by an old rebalancing contract that had been replaced but still held vault permissions. Troves revoked that access within about 40 minutes and paused three vaults (TokenPost; 0xCERT).
- Iron Fish shuts down over a 2019 bug. The privacy chain archived its code after an attacker used a Merkle-tree flaw that let the same note be spent repeatedly, minting 2.98 billion unbacked wIRON on Base and cashing out about $197,000. A fix would have needed a new genesis, so the team chose to wind down (crypto.news; postmortem).
- Aave freezes tBTC on Ethereum Core. After Threshold paused tBTC minting and redemptions, Aave blocked new tBTC deposits and borrowing power while it’s investigated; repayments, withdrawals and liquidations continue, and other Aave markets aren’t affected (Aave governance).
Health: interval doses for athletes, masters hamstrings, Tai Chi focus
Team-sport athletes: adding HIIT lifted VO2max, more with time. A meta-analysis of 46 studies (1,204 trained team-sport athletes) found HIIT on top of regular sport training beat regular training alone for VO2max (g = 0.76), Yo-Yo intermittent recovery (g = 1.02) and Wingate peak power (g = 0.91). VO2max rose about 2.6 mL/kg/min after roughly 5 weeks and 5.1 after roughly 10, and shorter recoveries between reps worked better. How to use it: layer a 5–10-week HIIT block on your usual training, with short rests between reps. Limits: the dose-response comes from study-level meta-regression, and body-composition effects were unclear (Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports).
Well-trained female skiers: a six-day interval block paid off. Seventeen cross-country skiers and biathletes (VO2max 55.1 mL/kg/min) either kept regular training or did five sessions of 6 × 5-minute hard intervals (perceived exertion 17–18 out of 20) in six days, then five easy days, which actually lowered total load. The block improved speed at VO2max by 3.6% vs 1.2% and speed at the 4 mmol lactate threshold by 4.4% vs 0.0%; the 15-minute time trial gain (5.4% vs 1.3%) wasn’t statistically significant. How to use it: if you’ve plateaued, a short, concentrated interval block followed by recovery is a time-efficient push. Limits: small, young women only, roller-ski tests, short term (European Journal of Sport Science).
Masters athletes: hamstring strength still fades with age. Nordic hamstring testing in 203 senior athletes set the first reference values: 156 N per leg for women and 242 N for men (2.46 and 2.99 N/kg). Each year of age went with about 2.1 N less peak force, roughly 1% of the women’s average. Left–right gaps averaged 11.6%, and up to about 16% was common, so standard asymmetry cutoffs may flag healthy athletes. How to use it: lots of sport doesn’t protect eccentric hamstring strength, so train it directly, for example with Nordic curls (the study measured, it didn’t test a program). Limits: cross-sectional, no injury outcomes (Frontiers in Sports and Active Living).
After ACL surgery: light blood-flow-restriction work matched heavy lifting. A systematic review of six RCTs plus one biomechanics study found low-load training with a restriction cuff gave quadriceps strength gains comparable to heavy training, but adding the cuff to properly dosed heavy training added nothing (p = 0.49). An early symmetry benefit at six weeks (57% vs 40%) didn’t last. How to use it: when heavy loading isn’t allowed yet, supervised cuff training keeps strength coming; once you can lift heavy, skip the cuff. Limits: clinical group, few small trials, no pooled estimate (SN Comprehensive Clinical Medicine).
College students: Tai Chi sharpened impulse control. A meta-analysis of seven RCTs (425 students) found Tai Chi improved inhibitory control (g = 0.57, from three trials), but the headline overall effect wasn’t robust, and working memory and cognitive flexibility didn’t change significantly. How to use it: a reasonable pick for focus, not a broad brain booster. Limits: general healthy young adults, small trials, low certainty, no session dose given (Frontiers in Psychology).
General population: activity blunted the risk of a bad cholesterol-inflammation mix. In two cohorts (18,416 US adults in NHANES and 2,575 Chinese adults in a longevity survey rich in the oldest-old), people with unfavorable LDL and inflammation profiles who were physically active had 44% lower all-cause mortality (HR 0.56) and 46% lower cardiovascular mortality (HR 0.54) in NHANES, and 33% lower all-cause mortality in the Chinese cohort (HR 0.67). Limits: observational; the abstract compares any activity with none, without a dose (Lipids in Health and Disease).
Briefly:
- Over 60: aerobic and strength work cool inflammation differently. A network meta-analysis of 82 studies (6,493 participants, mean age 71) found exercise lowered CRP, TNF-α and IL-6; aerobic training ranked best for IL-6 and TNF-α, resistance training for CRP. Doing both covers all three. Mixed healthy and ill older adults, very low certainty (Frontiers in Physiology).
- Probiotics nudged sleep and mood. Twenty placebo-controlled RCTs (1,508 healthy adults, at least four weeks) found small improvements in sleep quality (SMD −0.37) and depressive symptoms (SMD −0.23), not anxiety; general population, moderate certainty, no clear best strain or duration (Pharmacological Research).
General and local
Prince William bars DOJ monitors from polling places. Registrar Eric Olsen says the county won’t admit Justice Department monitors inside polling places on Election Day, citing the late request and no evidence of civil-rights problems; DOJ says it will monitor from outside. Manassas and Manassas Park got no such request. Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 3 (Hoodline).
AOC rallies for Vindman in Dumfries. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez drew hundreds for Rep. Eugene Vindman at Potomac Shores Middle School Friday night, focusing on affordability, the Iran war and gas prices, and praising Vindman’s push to make data centers “pay their own bill.” Chair Deshundra Jefferson and Sen. Jeremy McPike also spoke (Prince William Times).
Jobs week, with a December hike in play. ISM manufacturing is Monday, job openings Tuesday, ADP and ISM services Wednesday, and the October jobs report Friday, Nov. 6. Barclays expects just 50,000 jobs and 4.1% unemployment, which it says “would keep an FOMC hike in play” for December (Kiplinger).
Briefly:
- Fatal Centreville Road crash. Dmitry Vazquez, 33, of Manassas died around 2:13 a.m. Saturday when his BMW crossed into oncoming traffic at Centreville and Rugby roads and hit an SUV; three Leesburg residents had non-life-threatening injuries (7News; FOX 5).
- Burke Lake crash. A driver was hospitalized in life-threatening condition after a multi-vehicle crash at Fairfax County Parkway and Burke Lake Road Saturday evening (7News).
- Plate readers make their case. Fairfax police credit license plate readers with finding a McLean burglary suspect’s car this week, as the Board weighs the program’s future (FOX 5).
- Final campaign weekend. Trump swapped Saturday rallies for tele-rallies and added Sunday stops in Iowa and Kansas (AP).
Lighter note: Grimothy ran out of candy, so he gave away his fur. On Bainbridge Island, Washington, brothers Matthew Inman (of The Oatmeal and Exploding Kittens) and Bryce Inman spent six weeks building a 14-foot animatronic “Grimothy,” an evil version of Jimothy, the Seattle raccoon who went viral this summer. By Saturday afternoon, traffic was backed up a quarter-mile to see it. “We should have bought more candy,” Matthew texted; when it ran low, they started cutting off pieces of Grimothy’s fur to hand out. Fixing glitches means Bryce crawls up “what is essentially the monster’s butt” (Seattle Times).
Photo: courtesy of Matthew Inman, via The Seattle Times.
Russia: Moscow and Voronezh
Moscow and Voronezh. Mayor Sobyanin said 19 drones heading for Moscow were downed over Saturday, with no casualties reported, and Domodedovo has been working only with clearance from authorities since about 1:24 a.m. Moscow time Sunday, so check any flight. Voronezh region downed 22 drones overnight, with no injuries or damage reported (KP; RIA; Vesti).
Bottom line
Binance’s withdrawals are reopening in phases and the FBI has named North Korea; Tuesday’s proof of reserves is the next checkpoint. For training, a HIIT block or a six-day interval push lifts aerobic fitness, and masters athletes should train their hamstrings directly. Tuesday is Election Day, Friday brings the jobs report, and somewhere on Bainbridge Island a raccoon monster is a little balder.