The German government plans to impose a 25% capital gains tax on cryptocurrency gains.

On weekends when traditional financial markets are closed, Trade.xyz, dubbed the "on-chain Nasdaq," uses perpetual contracts to enable continuous trading and real-time price discovery unavailable in traditional finance, pricing in advance for U.S. and South Korean stock markets opening on Monday. Popular U.S. stock assets on Trade.xyz showed mixed moves after Friday’s close with limited overall volatility, and are expected to open nearly flat on Monday. Weekend performance: SpaceX is currently priced at $147.5, compared to $147.58 after Friday’s U.S. market close; Micron (MU) at $885.37, versus $879.9; SanDisk (SNDK) at $1237.2, versus $1239.85; NVIDIA at $211.99, versus $211.11; Marvell Technology (MRVL) at $228.11, versus $227.7; Intel at $86.318, versus $86.64; Google at $320.61, versus $321.15; AMD at $516.99, versus $516.8. Popular South Korean stocks on Trade.xyz all edged lower from Friday’s close, with Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix expected to open around 1% lower on Monday. Weekend performance: Samsung Electronics is currently priced at $161.2, versus $162.69 at Friday’s close; SK Hynix at $951.94, versus $964.06 at Friday’s close.

Goldman Sachs strategists have cut their target for South Korea’s KOSPI index by 25%. The team, led by analyst Timothy Mo, had raised the index’s target multiple times this year, but now lowered it amid growing concerns over AI-related trading. The 12-month KOSPI target was reduced from 12,000 points to 9,000 points. Goldman noted that the benchmark index has fallen more than 35% from its June peak, so valuation assumptions need to be more prudent. The strategists added that the current sell-off has left South Korean stocks heavily undervalued, and even after the target cut, the index still has over 60% upside potential.

Analyst Axel Adler Jr. noted in a post that Bitcoin prices remain in a tight consolidating range, with its 30-day high-low volatility narrowing from 13% to 6%. The cryptocurrency has now traded sideways between $80,000 and $86,000 for 9 consecutive days. Historically, sustained contraction in volatility often precedes a directional market move. Yesterday, Bitcoin found support near its 365-day simple moving average (SMA 365), then rebounded to close at $80,500, though it marked a near 30-day low. Key levels to watch going forward include the $86,000 resistance on the upside, and the SMA 365 support on the downside.

According to Seoul Economic Daily, South Korea’s presidential office has decided to further delay the implementation of the crypto asset income tax originally scheduled for January next year. A presidential office official said on the 25th that relevant discussions lean toward the delay. South Korea’s government amended the Income Tax Act in 2020 to impose tax on crypto asset gains, but the policy has already been delayed three times. The original plan was for the tax system to take effect on January 1, 2027. Per the revised Income Tax Act, annual income from crypto asset transfers or lending, after deducting a basic exemption of 2.5 million won, is taxed at 22% (combining national and local income taxes). South Korea also took into account that the U.S. will join the Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (CARF) starting in 2029, leading to the delay. CARF is an international tax information exchange mechanism, under which participating countries’ tax authorities can collect users’ residency and transaction data from crypto asset service providers and exchange such data cross-border. Given that the U.S. is a large crypto trading market and joined the framework late, if South Korea had implemented the tax earlier, it would have resulted in an excessive tax burden falling on users of South Korea’s domestic crypto trading platforms.

Nomura Securities said market concerns over the investment outlook for artificial intelligence amount to an overreaction, adding that the storage chip shortage will persist until 2028 and the storage sector has been severely undervalued.

According to an official announcement, Binance’s derivatives platform will launch pre-market trading for the PREDICTUSDT perpetual contract at 15:45 (GMT+8) on October 25, 2026, with a maximum leverage of up to 5x.