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On October 13, 2026, dating app Bumble Inc. (NASDAQ: BMBL) announced that it has reached a definitive agreement to be acquired by Ithaca Holdings, a holding company with a long-term investment in technology businesses, in an all-cash transaction valued at $1.3 billion. Common stockholders will receive $6.05 in cash for each share of Class A common stock, representing a premium of approximately 138% over the unaffected closing price on October 9, 2026, and a premium of approximately 119% over the volume-weighted average price as of that date.The special committee, with the assistance of independent legal and financial advisors, determined that the transaction is in the best interests of common stockholders and recommended that the board approve it. The board unanimously approved the transaction, with founder Whitney Wolfe Herd recusing herself from the deliberation and vote. A Blackstone affiliate and Wolfe Herd subsequently provided written consent to approve the transaction, constituting the required shareholder approval; shareholders will receive an information statement in accordance with Delaware law and federal securities laws.Upon completion, Ithaca co-CEOs Ravi Gupta and John Hegeman will serve as co-CEOs of Bumble and will work alongside Wolfe Herd. Bumble will be privatized, with offices in London, Austin, and New York City, and is expected to remain based in Austin. The company plans to file its third quarter Form 10-Q with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission by November 9, 2026, and will not issue an earnings press release or hold a conference call due to the transaction.

According to Bloomberg, Hock Tan, CEO of chip company Broadcom, stated at an event in Singapore on Monday that the artificial intelligence craze has attracted a group of investors with strategies similar to gamblers, some of whom have little understanding of what they are betting on. He mentioned that many investors "don't even know what they are investing in," setting extremely high expectations, resulting in a situation that is "almost like being in a casino," and specifically pointed to the investment frenzy driven by a lack of understanding of cutting-edge large language models.As the head of a company that designs key components for global data centers, Tan also questioned whether companies are wasting money on AI projects and the long-term economics of AI labs that are continuously losing money. He noted that ChatGPT developer OpenAI's annualized revenue reached $50 billion in September, indicating a viable model, but it does not guarantee long-term profitability; it is still losing money due to high training costs, and currently only suggests that cutting-edge generative models have significant potential revenue growth.Tan also warned that a lack of capital could become the next constraint on industry growth. The Australia-based data center company Firmus Grid, supported by Nvidia, withdrew its planned $5.5 billion IPO last week. Before Tan's remarks, DBS Group CEO Tan Su Shan stated that after a large amount of investment, the market is re-pricing the risks associated with AI financing.

According to Decrypt, the French National Assembly's Finance Committee passed two cryptocurrency tax amendments this week: starting from January 1, 2027, exchanges of stablecoins regulated by MiCA will be considered taxable sales; and a departure tax will be imposed on tax households relocating overseas with a total value of cryptocurrency assets exceeding 800,000 euros.The committee rejected the budget revenue portion with a vote of 31 to 3, and the full National Assembly will review the original text from the government. The aforementioned amendments will not be automatically included; supporters must reintroduce them during the debate starting on October 13, with a formal vote scheduled for October 20.The related measures have not yet become law. The stablecoin amendment was proposed by left-wing GDR party member Nicolas Sansu and 16 co-signers, applicable to electronic money tokens as defined by MiCA. The amendment does not set a new tax rate but aims to include the related revenue under France's existing unified tax system of 31.4%.The committee also passed an amendment proposed by Daniel Labaronne, allowing investors to carry forward cryptocurrency asset losses for 10 years to offset future gains. The proposed departure tax applies to taxpayers who have been French tax residents for at least 6 of the past 10 years and whose cryptocurrency assets, including custodial assets, have a total value exceeding 800,000 euros.

According to Bloomberg, the New York State government has filed a lawsuit accusing the prediction market platform Polymarket of operating an illegal gambling business. Specific allegations in the lawsuit and the remedies sought by New York State have not yet disclosed further details.

London-based AI precision machining software startup CloudNC announced the completion of a €17.2 million (approximately $20 million) funding round, led by the American venture capital firm Nimble Ventures, with participation from Calculus Venture Capital, Entrepreneur First, and Lockheed Martin's venture capital fund LM Ventures.

Google's Senior Director of Supply Chain Infrastructure, Nikhil Cherian, revealed that to overcome memory bottlenecks, Google is developing software and hardware solutions and dismantling retired servers to recycle DDR4 components to establish an internal recycling supply chain. Google has designed special hardware adapters to connect the previous generation DDR4 to the new generation of AI servers while importing retired servers to remove their DDR4 modules for recycling.Cherian stated that the AI industry has rapidly shifted from being compute-constrained to memory-constrained, with high-performance memory accounting for about 75% of the bill of materials cost for a given AI server. A Goldman Sachs report indicated that memory prices will continue to rise in the third quarter, with personal computer DRAM prices expected to increase by 18% to 23% and server DRAM prices expected to rise by 13% to 18%. Trendforce data shows that in August, the spot market prices for DDR4 8GB and DDR5 8GB rose to $142 and $133, respectively.The two TPU ASICs launched by Google this year have been optimized for memory design, claiming to reduce memory demand to one-sixth of the original. The TPU8i chip features a dedicated layered memory design that relies on a high-speed DDR5 memory architecture to perform host-level tasks, with each chip equipped with 288GB of HBM3e high-bandwidth memory.

Crypto analyst Ali Charts posted on platform X that Bitcoin's current trend is highly similar to the bottoming pattern in 2023. In 2023, Bitcoin broke the downward trend and tested the previous high in August, then retraced to around $20,000 before starting to rise.It seems that a similar structure is forming now, with a key observation level near $83,000 around the high in May 2026.

According to monitoring by Lookonchain, Gambler (0x66f8...a75a) continues to increase its short position in Bitcoin, with the short position growing to 2,136 Bitcoins, worth $136 million, making it the largest Bitcoin short position on the chain; the liquidation price is $64,592.3.

Rumble, with a market value of $2.8 billion, increased its holdings by 82.32 bitcoins in the second quarter of 2026, currently holding 293.14 bitcoins.This is Rumble's first increase in holdings after holding bitcoins for just over a year, and its bitcoin holdings rank 78th.

The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin dismissed the CFTC's request for a preliminary injunction to prohibit Wisconsin from enforcing sports-related event contracts on platforms such as Kalshi, Coinbase, Robinhood, Polymarket, and Crypto.com. The court found that the CFTC failed to demonstrate a likelihood of success on its claim—that the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) defines "swaps" to include sports event contracts—and that gambling regulation falls within the traditional police powers of the states, with federal law not clearly indicating an intent to preempt state law.Additionally, the court also denied the intervention requests from Kalshi, Crypto.com Derivatives North America (CDNA), and the American Gaming Association (AGA). The substantive litigation between the CFTC and the state of Wisconsin will continue to proceed.

According to Jinshi reports, the Polish armed forces stated that due to Russia's airstrikes on Ukraine, Poland has deployed fighter jets for protective reasons.

According to a report by The Paper, the Intermediate People's Court of Xilin Gol League in Inner Mongolia upheld the original verdict in the second trial of the case involving Ma for illegal business operations. This case is part of a series of cases where the Sifang payment platform provided funding and payment settlement for gambling platforms. Some defendants in this case were accused of receiving commissions or rebates in the form of virtual currencies such as USDT.It was found that from May 24, 2022, to October 18, 2023, Ma and four others illegally collected and paid funds through third-party payment accounts, and received USDT virtual currency and bank card payments through virtual wallets. They settled amounts exceeding 2.95 billion yuan through 105 merchants of 10 third-party payment companies.Ultimately, the court determined that Ma was guilty of illegal business operations, sentencing him to four years and six months in prison and imposing a fine of 3 million yuan. The five individuals who turned themselves in have been sentenced to prison terms ranging from 3 to 6 years for illegal business operations.

On July 20, the King County Superior Court in Washington State approved the preliminary injunction motion against KalshiEX, LLC (Kalshi), ruling that Kalshi's activities constitute illegal actions in violation of Washington State's gambling laws, and determined that the federal Commodity Exchange Act does not take precedence over state gambling laws.This ruling is an important precedent in the jurisdictional dispute between state regulatory agencies and federal regulatory prediction market platforms, following accusations from the CFTC chairman of illegal enforcement actions by states against federally regulated exchanges. The court made the ruling after reviewing multiple materials, including the oral arguments from July 10. The case number is 26-2-10264-3 SEA.

According to The New York Times, as Robinhood incorporates prediction markets into its app, concerns about the platform potentially exploiting young, inexperienced investors have intensified. Additionally, many still associate Robinhood with the Meme stock craze that swept the market, of which Robinhood was a significant driver.Now, Robinhood hopes that the public sees more than just these labels. The company has become one of the institutions responsible for operating the Trump Accounts program, which gives Robinhood the opportunity to build closer connections with the next generation of investors while further strengthening its ties with Washington.Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev responded that this move is not intended to encourage speculation but rather to expand financial inclusion and help more American families participate in long-term investing. Currently, Robinhood has adjusted some product designs and is attempting to transition from a "speculative trading platform" to a broader financial services company.