Blast, an Ethereum Layer 2 blockchain, announced it will cease operations due to unsustainable economics, with ongoing maintenance costs exceeding revenue. Users must withdraw their assets to Ethereum mainnet by October 26, 2026, with withdrawal delays reduced to 24 hours to facilitate the process.
The CFTC is investigating prediction market reward programs over concerns about misleading promotions and compliance violations. Kalshi has already terminated its incentive program, while Polymarket and others face potential enforcement action for using rewards to maintain liquidity, with risks including wash trading and market manipulation.
Absa Group became Africa's first bank to offer digital asset custody services, receiving regulatory approval from South Africa. The bank will provide institutional clients with secure custody and management for Bitcoin, XRP Ledger, Ethereum, and USDC, with plans to expand across Africa.
ZachXBT alleged that UPay, a crypto payment platform, may have provided white-label Visa crypto cards to Xinbi, a sanctioned illegal marketplace. The U.S. Treasury Department's OFAC designated Xinbi as a criminal organization in September and seized over $52 million in crypto assets from it.
Aave founder Stani Kulechov expressed disappointment with the European Central Bank and European Banking Authority's MiCA consultation responses, criticizing proposed appropriateness tests and certification requirements for DeFi protocols as potentially creating a 'walled garden' that limits access to open financial networks.
BNB Chain has become the first blockchain to achieve $1 billion in tokenized stocks and ETFs market cap, reaching $1.1 billion and accounting for about 30% of the total $3.7 billion market as of September. The sector grew 17% from August to September, with Ethereum and Solana following at $828 million and $738 million respectively. BNB Chain hosts 1.8 million addresses holding tokenized stocks, representing 45% of all holders.
Arthur Hayes, CIO of Maelstrom, predicts US policymakers will print money to finance AI infrastructure and Treasury debt, which could drive cryptocurrency prices higher. He noted that AI companies require trillions for data centers and that an Asian country may shift to monetary stimulus, while expressing concern about financial stress in France and the long-term consequences of money printing.
Circle submitted feedback to the European Commission's MiCA review, noting that while MiCA has given Europe a regulatory advantage with 30 authorized e-money tokens, only 3 of the world's top 25 stablecoins are regulated under it. Circle recommends retaining multi-issuer structures, establishing equivalence frameworks for foreign stablecoins, and revising reserve requirements that it argues increase banking risks.
Zcash, founded by cryptographer Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn, has resurged nearly hundredfold from a July 2024 low of $16, realizing the privacy-focused vision inherited from cypherpunk pioneer David Chaum's DigiCash project. The cryptocurrency represents decades of idealistic pursuit for truly anonymous digital money, tracing back through failed projects like MojoNation to Bitcoin's limitations.
The US will release its September nonfarm payrolls report on Friday at 20:30 Beijing time. Reuters surveys expect nonfarm payrolls to increase by 90,000, down from 162,000 in August, with unemployment holding at 4.1%. The report is crucial for assessing labor market strength and guiding the Federal Reserve's October rate decision.
Kinetiq ended its kPoints rewards mechanism and switched to a paid claims model, offering 50 million KNTQ tokens at $0.26 each with a 10-day window for users to participate. The shift, which requires payment instead of free point accumulation, triggered a 23% drop in KNTQ's market price.
Leopold Aschenbrenner, a former OpenAI researcher known as an 'AI stock god,' has restructured his portfolio by exiting put option hedges on major semiconductor companies like Nvidia and AMD while establishing large long positions in SanDisk (28%) and Micron (27.5%), alongside significant holdings in AI infrastructure and chip makers. He has also added roughly $315 million in call options across semiconductor and AI infrastructure companies, signaling increased bullish positioning on memory chips and computing infrastructure.
A NEAR community proposal by Svrn AI CEO Sal Ternullo seeks to reduce the NEAR token issuance rate from 2.5% to 1.6% over 24 months and move toward a fixed supply long-term. The proposal is under discussion by validators and the community. NEAR confirmed the recent Intents incident involved no protocol vulnerability and caused zero network downtime.
Dario Amodei left OpenAI in late 2020 to found Anthropic after losing trust in leadership, sparked by a 2017 proposal to auction AGI rights to governments and later disagreements over GPT-3 customer access. Kevin Roose's book The AGI Chronicles reveals internal details from 150+ insiders at major AI firms, exposing Silicon Valley's most significant corporate split.
On-chain perpetual DEX trading volume share grew significantly from 0.11% in January 2023 to 12.33% in September 2026, with real-world asset perpetuals expanding rapidly across stocks and commodities. Hyperliquid dominates the market with 56.8% of the $14.64 billion total open interest as of September 24.
Payment giant Fiserv launched a digital asset platform with its first deployment being Roughrider Coin, a USD-backed stablecoin issued by the Bank of North Dakota. The platform, built on Solana blockchain with infrastructure from Fireblocks, will enable interbank fund transfers for over 90 North Dakota financial institutions through Fiserv's Commercial Center system.
Anthropic plans to launch an IPO as early as mid-November with a potential valuation of $1.8 trillion to $2 trillion, aiming to complete trading before year-end. The company's 2025 revenue reached $4.6 billion, though it reported a net loss of approximately $42 billion, with operating losses exceeding $8 billion.
The Ethereum Foundation launched zkAPI with the Open Anonymity Project, enabling users to pay for AI API services anonymously using zero-knowledge proofs. Users deposit ETH or USDC once, then authorize API usage without revealing identity; service providers see requests but not payer identities, while payment providers see only amounts spent. The system uses cryptographic techniques to separate payments from identity and initially targets AI inference use cases involving sensitive data.
The IMF approved a $139 million disbursement to El Salvador and granted a waiver for breaching bitcoin accumulation limits under its Extended Fund Facility agreement. The fund cited El Salvador's stronger-than-expected economic performance, improved security, and progress on anti-money laundering measures, while noting that bitcoin additions came from private donations rather than public funds.
NEAR co-founder Illia Polosukhin announced that NEAR Intents and near.com have been restored after a $3.8 million exploit that targeted USDT on the BSC network through a vulnerability in Omni's deposit/withdrawal system. The NEAR core protocol and token were unaffected, and impacted users will receive full compensation.