Key News from Last Night and This Morning (October 18–19)

A whale withdrew $2.34 million worth of ARB and UNI from a CEX, coinciding with ARB unlocking over 90 million tokens in a single day

Whale address 0x204 withdrew approximately $2.34 million worth of Arbitrum (ARB) and Uniswap (UNI) tokens from Bybit about 2 hours ago.

Notably, Arbitrum just unlocked over 90 million ARB this week. Despite ongoing token unlock pressure, ARB's price has risen sharply recently and remained elevated over the past month.

Bloomberg: Hyperliquid seeks U.S. rules that protect its blockchain and place regulation at the application layer

Hyperliquid Labs co-founder Jeff Yan is seeking U.S. rules that can protect its blockchain. He believes Hyperliquid's regulatory responsibility should fall on the financial institutions operating markets on that blockchain — that is, at the application layer — rather than on the blockchain network itself. This regulatory division would allow Hyperliquid to enter Wall Street without bearing the full compliance burden of a traditional exchange.

Jeff Yan also said that Hyperliquid has not yet opened to U.S. customers. Hyperliquid would rather become the underlying trading technology used by traditional financial institutions than replace existing financial market participants, positioning itself by analogy to how Amazon Web Services (AWS) provides computing infrastructure for enterprises.

Another twist in Nscale's IPO plans: Microsoft exits data center project

Microsoft (MSFT.O) has exited its data center partnership with emerging UK cloud service provider Nscale in Loughton, Essex, England. The move comes at a critical time as Nscale prepares for its IPO, adding another twist to the startup's listing plans.

The report said Microsoft did not specify the reason for terminating the cooperation, but the project has faced a series of delays. Local authorities have informed Nscale that power for the facility is not expected to be available until the 2030s. In addition, Nscale's flagship project in Norway has also fallen about six months behind its original schedule, with only 6.4 MW of the planned 30 MW data center capacity currently operational.

According to Nscale's IPO filings, about 85% of the company's contracts depend on Microsoft and Anthropic. Microsoft had originally planned to be the anchor tenant of Nscale's first UK data center in Essex. Microsoft's exit will be a blow to Nscale, which is seeking to raise up to $3 billion through its IPO and could list as soon as this month.

Analyst: Mid- and small-cap crypto assets rarely lead BTC, but trend reversal risk is high

Crypto analyst Darkfost wrote that since late August, mid- and small-cap crypto assets have shown the strongest market cap growth, with the gap between their monthly average and annual average market cap continuing to widen, and the ratio now reaching 41%. By comparison, Bitcoin's ratio is 7%, and large-cap crypto assets are only 3.5%.

Darkfost noted that this trend is relatively rare, because Bitcoin usually leads the market first, as was the case after the bear market ended in 2023. However, mid- and small-cap assets are more sensitive to market changes, and the current trend could also reverse quickly.

Analysis: Long-end pricing anchor has clearly shifted to a "growth/AI cycle," and the market's pricing power over U.S. inflation is rapidly fading

CITIC Securities released a research note pointing out that U.S. September CPI of 3.7% YoY and PPI of 6.3% YoY both came in above expectations, but the reaction of long-end Treasury yields faded rapidly within 24 hours: after the CPI release on October 14, the 10-year Treasury yield first surged about 13bp to 5.325%, then gave back its gains and closed lower; after the PPI release on October 15, the 10-year rose only slightly by about 2.5bp while the 30-year moved directly lower, and the 10-year then quickly fell back to around 5.048%.

The market's pricing power over inflation is rapidly fading, and the long-end pricing anchor has clearly shifted to a "growth/AI cycle" — the "recession" it is pricing is essentially the tail risk of a downturn in the AI capex cycle, rather than a traditional demand recession, and it can coexist with stagflation. This is still left-side tentative pricing and has not yet formed a confirmed trend. In the short term, U.S. stocks may continue sector rotation, with funds shifting from AI themes to energy, defensive consumer staples, and healthcare that could benefit from expectations of a Democratic sweep in the midterms. Hong Kong stocks may also benefit from the reversal of overseas AI hardware trades, as well as capital allocation from Indonesia potentially being removed from the MSCI Emerging Markets Index.

Trader Killa: Still bullish on Bitcoin, will not close position before it reaches $126,000

Trader Killa wrote that Bitcoin's rise is not necessarily because the trend follows logic — sometimes it is precisely because the market defies convention. If market trends always followed logic and every move could be explained rationally, everyone would make money, but the Bitcoin market is not like that. He currently still holds a BTC long position and will not close it before the price reaches $126,000.

A trader transferred 1.662 million ONDO and nearly 30,000 LINK to Binance, with unrealized gains of over $400,000 after holding for 5 months

Trader "KIMCHOWOO" on OpenSea spent $676,500 about 5 months ago to buy about 1.662 million ONDO and nearly 30,000 LINK, and the value of the position once rose to $1.084 million during the holding period. About two hours ago, the trader transferred the entire position to Binance, and would profit over $400,000 if sold.

Data: ZRO, XPL and other tokens will see large unlocks next week, with ZRO unlocking about $43.3 million

Token Unlocks data shows that tokens including ZRO, XPL, and H will see large unlocks next week, among which:

LayerZero (ZRO) will unlock about 23.28 million tokens at 7:00 PM Beijing time on October 20, representing about 3.83% of circulating supply, worth about $43.3 million;

Plasma (XPL) will unlock about 227 million tokens at 8:00 PM Beijing time on October 25, representing about 5.02% of circulating supply, worth about $17.9 million;

Humanity (H) will unlock about 266 million tokens at 8:00 AM Beijing time on October 25, representing about 6.84% of circulating supply, worth about $15 million;

SoSoValue (SOSO) will unlock about 23.46 million tokens at 5:00 PM Beijing time on October 24, representing about 5.63% of circulating supply, worth about $6.9 million;

SOON (SOON) will unlock about 20.24 million tokens at 4:30 PM Beijing time on October 23, representing about 3.50% of circulating supply, worth about $6.3 million;

Kaito (KAITO) will unlock about 17.6 million tokens at 8:00 PM Beijing time on October 20, representing about 3.69% of circulating supply, worth about $5 million;

ChainOpera AI (COAI) will unlock about 19.55 million tokens at 3:00 PM Beijing time on October 25, representing about 6.36% of circulating supply, worth about $5 million.

DeepSeek announces API web search and scraping fees: 5 yuan per 1,000 successful requests

DeepSeek issued an announcement that the DeepSeek API now supports web search and scraping, billed by request count at 5 yuan per 1,000 successful requests. The announcement said that when users currently use the DeepSeek API in DeepSeek Harness/Claude Code/Codex, they already access the Search/Fetch interfaces through server-side tool calls, and these Search/Fetch interface calls are currently not billed. They will begin to be charged per call starting at 00:00 Beijing time on November 1, 2026.

Strive CEO posts chart again, possibly hinting at Bitcoin accumulation data disclosure next week

Strive CEO Matt Cole again posted the company's Bitcoin holdings data chart on X, with the caption "now stacking sats at double horsepower," hinting that BTC accumulation data may be disclosed next week, a move that may emulate Strategy founder Michael Saylor.

Michael Saylor posts Bitcoin Tracker info again, may disclose position change data next week

Michael Saylor, founder and executive chairman of Bitcoin treasury company Strategy, again posted Bitcoin Tracker-related information. Based on past patterns, Strategy usually discloses Bitcoin position change information the day after Michael Saylor posts related messages.

Divergence over Bitcoin's year-end outlook intensifies: optimists look to $100,000, cautious camp focuses on inflation pressure

Institutions hold differing views on Bitcoin's year-end trajectory, with optimists looking toward $100,000 and the cautious camp focusing on inflation pressure.

Bitwise Head of Research Ryan Rasmussen believes that, driven by continued institutional buying through ETFs and corporations, inflation and government debt concerns, and a clearer regulatory environment, Bitcoin could break above $100,000 by the end of 2026. LO:TECH Head of Research Adam Morgan McCarthy expects Bitcoin will most likely trade in the $85,000–$95,000 range before year-end, with inflation pressure and Fed policy remaining market headwinds; to return above $100,000, the market may need to lower expectations for a Fed rate hike in December, and falling oil prices and easing inflation could help bring about that change.

CoinShares Head of Research James Butterfill pointed out that the contradiction between persistent inflation and a weakening labor market will affect the Fed's future policy room: cooling inflation could provide room to respond to labor market weakness, while re-accelerating inflation could keep monetary policy restrictive.

Q3 crypto security incident losses up 55% QoQ, Hacken warns audits cannot cover all risks

A report from blockchain security firm Hacken shows that in the third quarter of 2026, the crypto industry saw 107 security incidents with losses of $1.18 billion, up 55% quarter-over-quarter. Of this, about $906.8 million in losses involved breaches of suppliers or development tools, known vulnerabilities not patched in time, and related components not included in the latest audit scope. In addition, some derivatives trading platforms and prediction markets rely on inadequate key management arrangements for asset security, though no actively exploited vulnerabilities have been found on those platforms. The analysis holds that security audits cannot replace continuous vulnerability management, and projects still need to patch known vulnerabilities promptly and ensure audits cover system components that actually affect fund security.

Hyperliquid burned about $891,000 worth of HYPE in the past 24 hours, cumulative burn at 4.96% of max supply

Hyperliquid repurchased and burned about 11,340 HYPE in the past 24 hours at an average price of $78.55, worth about $890,900, while platform fee revenue over the same period was estimated at about $764,900.

To date, HYPE's cumulative burn is about 49.63 million tokens, worth about $3.9 billion at current valuation, accounting for 4.96% of its 1 billion max supply. In addition, Hyperliquid's revenue over the past 30 days was about $69.94 million.

Justin Sun trades PEPE again after two years, received 7.2 trillion PEPE from Poloniex multisig address 22 hours ago

Justin Sun traded PEPE again after a two-year gap. 22 hours ago, the Justin Sun address (0x176…0a132) received 7.2 trillion PEPE, worth $28.44 million, from a Poloniex multisig address.

CZ responds to BNB phone proposal: not sure carrying a crypto phone is a good idea

BNB ecosystem member Spigg proposed launching a dedicated BNB phone that integrates a native wallet, instant payment and transfer functions, and consolidates all DApps in the BNB ecosystem onto a single platform, so users can manage assets, make payments, and interact with on-chain applications on one device.

In response, Binance founder CZ said he rarely disagrees with Spigg, but appeared to remain reserved about whether carrying a crypto phone is a good idea. However, CZ did not further explain his specific concerns, nor did he explicitly oppose launching a BNB phone.

"Bitcoin Jesus" Roger Ver reaches deal with Trump administration, will pay up to $49.9 million to settle U.S. tax charges

Early Bitcoin investor Roger Ver, known as "Bitcoin Jesus," has reached a deferred prosecution agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice to resolve criminal charges of alleged mail fraud and tax evasion. Under the agreement, if Ver complies with the relevant terms, the indictment against him will be dismissed after one month, and the IRS may recover up to $49.9 million from him, covering taxes, civil penalties, and interest.

The DOJ previously alleged that Ver failed to pay at least $48 million in taxes after renouncing his U.S. citizenship in 2014 and obtaining citizenship in St. Kitts and Nevis. Ver was arrested in Spain in April 2024. Earlier this year, he publicly called on Trump to help end the legal action against him, but ultimately did not receive a presidential pardon, instead resolving the case through an agreement with the Trump administration. Ver expressed gratitude for the resolution of the case and for the leadership and professional handling of the Trump administration.

Qubic discloses security incident that compromised 1,404 wallets, about 2.94 trillion QU transferred

Qubic released a security incident update stating that between 23:42 on October 17 and 01:26 on October 18 (UTC), attackers exploited a vulnerability of insufficient randomness in some wallet seeds to access and transfer assets from 1,404 Qubic wallets, involving about 2.94 trillion QU. Qubic said the issue lay in the wallet seed generation process, not in the Qubic protocol itself.

Broadcom, Verizon and 7 other U.S. companies oppose tokenized trading of their stocks on OKXICE

OKXICE, a tokenized stock trading platform jointly established by OKX and Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, disclosed in an announcement released on October 15 that nine U.S. listed companies have opposed trading of their stocks on the platform, including Broadcom, Verizon, UnitedHealth, AppLovin, Applied Digital, Rocket Lab, CoreWeave, Applied Optoelectronics, and Cerebras Systems, which had previously chosen to exit. The announcement did not state the reasons for the opposition. In addition, Nasdaq said it would choose not to have its own stock tokenized under this framework. OKXICE had previously notified the SEC of its plan to rely on the five-year "innovation exemption" launched by the SEC on September 17 to first list tokenized stocks of 63 U.S. listed companies.

Anthropic announces public benefit fund, commits 5% of shares to public interest

The company will inject a portion of its shares into the newly established Anthropic Public Benefit Fund. Subject to shareholder approval, it is committing 5% of shares today; thereafter, each time the company's valuation grows 50% above a set baseline, the board may, at its discretion, add another 2%. The fund is set up as a wholly owned LLC rather than a charitable structure such as a 501(c)(3), and the equity held will not be used for lobbying or political donations in any country. Anthropic said the fund will be used for large donations to traditional nonprofits, direct distributions to specific groups, and other purposes, with a key focus on addressing the labor market impact of AI (the company has already committed $200 million to this). Combined with the founders' commitment to donate 80% of their holdings and an employee equity matching program, about 20% of Anthropic's shares will be used for the public interest, and may increase further with valuation milestones.

Latvia plans to allow residents to pay taxes with crypto as early as 2027, parliament simultaneously reforms crypto tax rules

Dizis Dejus, strategic planning advisor to the Latvian Prime Minister, said at the UN:BLOCK fintech conference in Riga that the country plans to allow residents to use cryptocurrency to pay personal income tax as early as next year. The Ministry of Finance has agreed, but technical integration with payment service providers remains to be completed. The move builds on the crypto tax payment and asset tokenization plan announced in May 2025. The Latvian parliament passed legislation on October 15 to tax withdrawals from crypto investment accounts that exceed the initial deposit amount, replacing the previous practice of taxing each transaction, and introduced a one-time declaration mechanism: holders can pay 10% on the market value of declared assets by the end of 2026 to settle historical tax liabilities, with the declaration period from April 1 to May 31, 2027, and the tax payment deadline on July 23. Dejus did not disclose the payment service providers or eligible currencies.

South Korean stock market opens down 3%

South Korea's KOSPI index fell below 5,600 points in early trading, down 3.17% intraday. SK Hynix fell 4%, and Samsung Electronics fell 3%.

Nikkei 225 intraday decline widens to 2.2%, South Korea's KOSPI intraday decline narrows to 1%

The Nikkei 225 index fell back below 64,000 points, down 2.20% intraday. South Korea's KOSPI index narrowed its intraday decline to 1.00%, after falling more than 3% earlier.

A whale closed a $110 million BTC long and switched to a $45.8 million U.S. stock long

A whale's long position of 1,360 BTC (about $110 million) had a market stop-loss placed at $80,500 that was ultimately not triggered. At 4 AM, BTC briefly fell to $80,684, just $184 away from the stop-loss price, but did not continue lower. At 5 AM, the whale closed the BTC long at $80,949, losing about $3.26 million. It then shifted to U.S. stocks, opening a long position worth $45.8 million, including TSLA, DRAM, and SOXL. The liquidation price of this long position is at $80,034.

Musk comments on Anthropic public benefit fund: suggests "distributing shares directly to the public"

Anthropic announced early this morning that it will inject a portion of its shares into a newly established wholly owned entity, the Anthropic Public Benefit Fund, which serves the public interest entirely. The fund's initial size is 5% of the company's shares, and thereafter each time the company's valuation grows 50% above a set baseline, an additional 2% can be injected, up to about 20%. In response, Elon Musk replied suggesting "distributing shares directly to the public," and later added "that's exactly what I'm going to do."

World launches World ID suite for banks, Zoom deepfake detection fully open

World (Worldcoin), the identity project co-founded by Sam Altman, launched a World ID suite for banks and financial institutions, the first industry-specific product for the identity protocol. Co-founder Alex Blania unveiled it at the Money20/20 conference. The suite integrates the World ID app, World ID for Zoom, and World ID for Agents (AgentKit) for AI agents, designed to guard against deepfake fraud and AI impersonation. The Zoom deepfake detection feature has ended its testing phase that began in April and is now fully open. World named OpenExchange, Bain Capital, VanEck Funds, and Outtake as design partners, but did not disclose the specific banks using the product or pricing. More than 18 million people currently hold "Proof of Human."

CZ's autobiography "Freedom of Money" Japanese edition launches, all proceeds donated to charity

Binance founder CZ (Changpeng Zhao) posted that the Japanese edition of his autobiography "Freedom of Money" officially went on sale that day. The English edition, Chinese edition, and Audible audiobook were previously launched, with more languages coming soon. CZ said all proceeds from the book will be donated to charity. He also released a 4-minute-31-second video recounting his personal experience, noting that the video and most of the voiceover were generated by AI.