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According to Microsoft's 10-K filing for fiscal year 2026, as of June 30, 2026, the company had approximately 223,000 full-time employees, down from 228,000 the previous year, a decrease of about 5,000, marking the first decline in ten years.Among them, there are 121,000 employees in the United States and 102,000 employees overseas; approximately 77,000 employees are in research and development, a decrease of about 4,000 from the peak in 2024. During the same period, Microsoft's revenue for fiscal year 2026 increased by 18% year-on-year, reaching $331.8 billion.The above employee statistics do not include the new round of approximately 4,800 job cuts in July 2026. Microsoft previously stated that the eliminated positions would not be directly replaced by AI.

The co-founder and Chief Operating Officer Alon of the meme coin issuance platform Pump.fun stated that the team had previously focused on launch pads for a long time and only began supporting cross-chain exchanges about 5 months ago. After investigating the cross-chain service provider Relay used at that time, he noted that over one-ninth of cross-chain purchases on Relay encountered errors, with typical purchase landing times close to 4 seconds, and one-tenth exceeding 7 seconds. The number of tokens users received was usually less than expected. He also mentioned that the social trading application FOMO still relies on Relay.Alon stated that the self-developed cross-chain bridge Pump Bridge has been opened to all Pump.fun application users. Compared to Relay, the purchase landing speed has improved by 2 times, and the error rate has decreased by 92%, dropping from over one-ninth to less than one percent. Users can obtain more tokens on average with the same amount of funds, and currently, no additional cross-chain fees are charged. He mentioned that due to the limitations of light speed and target chain confirmation time, the theoretical fastest landing time for purchases is about 1.1 seconds, and the team is still working to reduce the remaining gap.The above comparison comes from random tests conducted in the Pump.fun mobile application from September 28 to October 7, covering Robinhood, BSC, Base, Arc, and Ink, excluding Ethereum, with a total of 416,669 transaction results recorded. Among them, 383,326 transactions recorded the time taken from click to successful prompt, and an additional 35,333 transactions of completed USDC purchases under $500 were used for comparison. Alon also stated that the platform fee rate is 0.45%, with Callout rewards of at least $300,000 daily, totaling about $20 million over two months, and the platform does not retain platform fees.

CryptoQuant analyst Axel Adler Jr. stated that the unrealized profits of large short-term holders have decreased from 9.8 billion dollars on September 22 to about 4.6 billion dollars on October 20, a reduction of approximately 5.1 billion dollars within a month, representing a decline of 53%.This does not mean that whales have sold off more than half of their holdings, but rather that their current unrealized gains from holding BTC have significantly narrowed.

The weekly change in ADP employment in the United States for the week ending October 3 was an increase of 18,500 people, compared to the previous value of 24,750 people.

Cryptocurrency asset management company Grayscale posted on X: Bitcoin's volatility has decreased over the past decade as the asset has matured, with relevant background including deeper liquidity, institutional participation, and regulation.Grayscale stated that over the past year, Bitcoin's volatility has dropped to 43%, down from 81% five years ago, and is now within the volatility range of S&P 500 constituents. The company also mentioned that for investors who are already accustomed to holding highly volatile stocks, Bitcoin's price fluctuations may not be as daunting as previously assumed.

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino posted on the X platform that U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal's "analysis" of the Tether sanctions report overlooked one point: since 2023, Tether has, on average, frozen related addresses 4 weeks ahead of the formal sanctions identified by the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and the Israeli National Bureau for Counter Terror Financing (NBCTF), and in 99% of cases, the freeze was completed before Chainalysis marked the related addresses.He stated that Tether's actions have led to a 94% decrease in stablecoin trading volume related to Iran. Previously, on September 28, Blumenthal released a report from the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, stating that among 846 sanctioned wallets related to Iran and its proxies, 84% almost exclusively used USDT for transactions, and he wrote to the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Department of Justice requesting an investigation into Tether.

According to RootData data, there is a significant divergence between the contract prices of U.S. stocks and the pre-market reference prices. SOXL, SNXX, AXTI, Bloom Energy, and Cipher Mining lead the gains; SOXS, SQQQ, Moderna, Cadence, and Eli Lilly lead the declines:Top 5 Gainers:Semiconductor Triple Long ETF (SOXL) contract price is currently reported at $100.69, up 7.49% from the pre-market price of $93.67;SNXX (SNXX) contract price is currently reported at $9.67, up 6.18% from the pre-market price of $9.11;AXTI (AXTI) contract price is currently reported at $53.80, up 4.52% from the pre-market price of $51.47;Bloom Energy (BE) contract price is currently reported at $230.01, up 3.93% from the pre-market price of $221.31;Cipher Mining (CIFR) contract price is currently reported at $9.30, up 3.56% from the pre-market price of $8.98.Top 5 Decliners:SOXS (SOXS) contract price is currently reported at $45.59, down 7.40% from the pre-market price of $49.23;SQQQ (SQQQ) contract price is currently reported at $37.64, down 3.24% from the pre-market price of $38.90;Moderna (MRNA) contract price is currently reported at $215.25, down 1.27% from the pre-market price of $218.01;Cadence (CDNS) contract price is currently reported at $316.52, down 0.94% from the pre-market price of $319.51;Eli Lilly (LLY) contract price is currently reported at $1,246.89, down 0.81% from the pre-market price of $1,257.03.

According to The Block, South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Upbit announced its trading data for the week ending October 18, with the platform's weekly trading volume dropping to 83.5 trillion Korean won, approximately 6.28 billion USD, a decrease of 15.5% compared to the previous period.During the same statistical period, the cryptocurrency with the highest trading volume on Upbit was XRP, followed by Bitcoin and USDT.

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) reported that as of the week ending October 13, stock fund speculators reduced their net short positions in CME S&P 500 index futures by 5,804 contracts, to 390,896 contracts.

Filecoin announced that three advancements have been made this month: the new reward mechanism Solstice will allocate more block rewards to services that bring paying customers to the network, while the rewards solely for consensus mining will be correspondingly reduced, and the unearned portion will be destroyed; the release period for the genesis token is about to end, and the daily new FIL circulation is expected to decrease by approximately 75%.In addition, Filecoin has launched new products aimed at enterprises and AI Agents, including the Filecoin-based storage cloud Integral Spacetime, S3 compatible object storage Fil One, and tools that support AI Agents to directly store files, obtain public links, and make on-chain payments.

Some investors are considering valuing the upcoming IPO of the artificial intelligence company Anthropic at $1.5 trillion, a 25% decrease from the earlier expectation of $2 trillion.Anthropic reported third-quarter revenue of $16.8 billion, a 45% quarter-over-quarter increase, but the growth rate has sharply slowed after more than doubling revenue in the second quarter. The company also reported adjusted profitability for the quarter.

According to The Block, publicly listed Bitcoin mining company CleanSpark and BitFuFu saw a month-on-month decline in Bitcoin production in September, while Canaan's production remained the same as in August. CleanSpark mined 529 BTC in September, a decrease of nearly 11% from 593 BTC in August; BitFuFu produced 167 BTC, down 4% from 174 BTC in August; Canaan mined 44 BTC, the same as in August.As of the end of September, CleanSpark held 13,530 BTC, down from 13,703 BTC at the end of August. The company stated that it sold 2 BTC on the spot market and exercised call options to sell 700 BTC at an average price of $72,928 each. CleanSpark also announced that it would stop releasing monthly mining updates and switch to quarterly reports to focus more on its continuously expanding data center business. Last week, the company completed a $2.276 billion issuance of senior secured notes to fund the construction of its data center campus in Sandersville, Georgia, which is expected to generate approximately $6.6 billion in revenue. CleanSpark's stock CLSK closed at $8.76 on Thursday, down over 24% year-to-date.BitFuFu's self-mining output in September increased from 88 BTC in August to 98 BTC, an increase of over 11%, but its cloud mining output decreased from 86 BTC to 69 BTC, a decline of nearly 20%. Its Bitcoin holdings slightly increased to 1,388 BTC.

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang stated that COREWEAVE's strength is increasing every day, and its capital costs are actually decreasing.

Market research firm IDC stated that the smartphone market experienced the most severe decline on record in the September quarter, with shipments dropping by 22%, primarily affected by rising storage costs, and the situation is expected to worsen.Over the past year, rising storage costs, driven mainly by demand from the artificial intelligence industry, have harmed the profitability of the mobile industry, forcing companies to raise prices, cut specifications, and abandon models aimed at the budget market. Among major brands, Xiaomi and Oppo were hit the hardest, while Apple and Samsung performed relatively better due to their larger portfolio of high-end models.

According to a report from the official Coinbase blog, the Anti-Scam Centre (ASC) of the Singapore Police Force released a briefing on scams and cybercrime for the first half of 2026, showing that cryptocurrency scam losses in Singapore decreased by 43% year-on-year, from 114.9 million Singapore dollars to 65.5 million Singapore dollars.The ASC attributes this achievement in part to the actions taken by industry partners, including the shutdown of 47,500 mobile lines, 37,500 WhatsApp accounts, and 52,200 malicious websites, as well as investigations into over 2,900 money mules and scammers, resulting in approximately 470 prosecutions. The Coinbase Global Intelligence Team identified over 720 potential victims through four joint operations with the ASC, helping to intercept potential losses of over 18.9 million Singapore dollars.

The scenarios envisioned in the IMF World Economic Outlook report indicate that global GDP will decrease by 1.1% by 2028 due to the withdrawal of investments in artificial intelligence and a sharp decline in asset prices.

According to Coinglass data, the total contract open interest for ETH has decreased by 6.29% in the past 24 hours, with the current total open interest at 29.713 billion USD. Among them, Binance's open interest is 8.793 billion USD, OKX's open interest is 1.629 billion USD, Bybit's open interest is 2.059 billion USD, and Gate's open interest is 1.85 billion USD.

According to SoSoValue data, as of 8 AM Eastern Time on October 12, 2026, the total net purchase of Bitcoin by global listed companies (excluding mining companies) for the week was $22.5 million, a decrease of 90.6% compared to two weeks ago.Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) purchased 250 Bitcoins last week at a price of $86,194, spending approximately $22 million, bringing its total holdings to 848,250 Bitcoins.The Japanese listed company Metaplanet did not purchase any Bitcoin last week.In addition, two other companies announced their Bitcoin purchases or holdings last week. Bitcoin reserve and cutting-edge artificial intelligence investment company Bitcoin Japan announced on October 7 that it purchased 5.8847 Bitcoins at a price of $84,706.34, bringing its total holdings to 17.8035 Bitcoins; Ethereum asset company Bitmine announced after 8 AM Eastern Time on October 5 that it purchased 1 Bitcoin, without disclosing the specific purchase amount, bringing its total holdings to 214 Bitcoins.As of the time of publication, the total amount of Bitcoin held by global listed companies (excluding mining companies) is 1,163,359 Bitcoins, an increase of 0.3% compared to two weeks ago, with a current market value of approximately $9.657 billion, accounting for 5.8% of Bitcoin's circulating market value.

According to the data panel on the ChainCatcher official website, regarding BTC wallet balances, in the past 7 days, among the top 10 exchanges by balance, Binance saw the largest decrease at 1.78%; OKX had the largest increase at 1.73%.In terms of exchange asset transparency proof, in the past 7 days, the top three net outflows of reserve assets were Deribit (-1.047 billion USD), Binance (-804 million USD), and Bitget (-318 million USD); the top three net inflows were Bitfinex (+675 million USD), OKX (+432 million USD), and Bybit (+46.315 million USD).

According to Polymarket data, the probability of the Federal Reserve raising interest rates by 25 basis points in October has dropped to 17%, while the probability of maintaining the current rate has risen to 84%. The trading volume for the related prediction event has reached 32 million dollars.