Banking Fears, Trade Tensions, and Crypto Shakeout: PALvatar Market Recap, October 17 2025

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1:34episode of The Journeyman, where Raoul catches up with Mike Novogratz. We also have a highly anticipated MIT update for Alpha members and tons of other content. One more note before we look at the news, beware of scammers. Unfortunately, they continue to pop up on Real Vision hoping to steal your crypto. Real Vision staff will never DM you to promote something. Be careful and don't fuck this up. Anyway, let's get into it. It's a bit of an ugly picture in global stock markets today, with a dip on Wall Street on Thursday extending into Asia, Europe and US futures today. There's a growing concern about the health of the US regional banking sector after two lenders, Zions Bank Corporation and Western Alliance, revealed exposure to alleged fraudulent loans.

2:18The VIX volatility index spiked to its highest level since April, and CNN's fear and greed index fell into extreme fear territory. Hong Kong's Hang Seng dropped 2.5%, while Shenzhen Composite closed down 3%. Midway through the trading day, European stocks were all trading lower, in excess of 1%, apart from the CAC 40, which was doing a little better. Gold rallied to a fresh high of nearly$4 ,350, and the 10-year US Treasury yield fell to its lowest level since April. In addition to domestic banking worries, ongoing tensions between the United States and China over trade policies continue to weigh on investor confidence.

3:01The potential imposition of significant tariffs by the US, coupled with China's restrictions on rare-earth exports, has renewed fears about an all-out trade war that could disrupt global supply chains. China accused the US on Thursday of purposefully stoking panic, but indicated willingness to negotiate. In other geopolitical news, US President Donald Trump has set up a second meeting with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, this time in Hungary. The crypto market cap has fallen to its lowest level since July. Coindesk reports Bitcoins drop under$105 ,000, took it below its 200-day moving average.

3:38It has dragged altcoins along with it, wiping out more than$1.2 billion in leveraged bets, according to Coinglass data. Still, positive headlines are not hard to find. Bloomberg reports that Ripple Labs is leading a fundraising effort aimed at accumulating$1 billion in XRP as part of a new digital asset treasury company. Ripple has also announced a$1 billion acquisition of G-Treasury, the treasury infrastructure provider. And Binance has been cleared by regulators in South Korea to acquire GOPACs, which will allow it to resume operations in the country. That's it for this week. New fan-favorite Ejaz joins Mando on today's RectVision, and then Arta and Bijan will wrap it all up for you.

4:23Touch some grass over the weekend, don't look too much at the charts, and come back with new energy on Monday. Take care.