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The UK-listed company The Smarter Web Company, with the stock code SWC and a share price of 0.0219 USD, has purchased an additional 20 bitcoins, increasing its total holdings to 2850 bitcoins, ranking 30th among companies holding bitcoins.

The venture capital firm a16z published comments from co-founder Marc Andreessen on X regarding open-source AI. Marc Andreessen: If the only way for children to learn AI is to work at one or two companies, it would be hard for parents to accept.He also stated that in an open-source world, every child can understand how the relevant technology works. Without open-source, AI will inevitably be concentrated in one or two companies, or even directly in the hands of the government.Marc Andreessen also used the analogy of "government sushi," asking people to imagine "government AI," and stated that open-source is a safeguard to ensure this scenario does not become a reality in the future.

Goldman Sachs Group data shows that, affected by the stock market sell-off, global hedge funds have experienced the broadest decline since the COVID-19 pandemic. All three major stock strategies fell more than 1% on the same day.As of Thursday's close, global fundamental long-short strategy funds fell by 1.4%, while funds focused on telecommunications, media, and technology sectors averaged a decline of 2.7%. Global systematic long-short strategy funds fell by 1.3%, and multi-strategy platforms fell by 1.9%.

AI video startup Higgsfield Inc. announced that it has received investments from NVIDIA and TCV. This round of financing will be used to support global infrastructure development and talent recruitment. The company is headquartered in San Francisco, with its engineering team primarily located in Kazakhstan.This financing is a follow-up extension to the Series B funding in August, during which it raised $400 million, bringing the company's valuation to $5.4 billion.

According to Glassnode's latest on-chain weekly report "Swept and Refilled," Gate has performed outstandingly in the tokenized gold spot and perpetual contract markets, with its position size and trading volume market share continuously increasing.The report indicates that since the beginning of 2026, Gate has contributed 42% of the net increase in the global tokenized gold perpetual contract open interest, surpassing all other tracked exchanges. At the same time, Gate's 7-day average position size for tokenized gold perpetual contracts corresponds to a gold exposure of 1.7 tons, ranking first in the world, ahead of OKX's 1.5 tons.In the spot market, Gate's market share of tokenized gold spot trading volume surged from 0.6% in 2024 to 12% so far in 2026, expanding to 20 times its original size. The report also notes that as market share continues to grow, Gate has become one of the most prominent trading platforms for the growth of tokenized gold spot market share this year. The simultaneous expansion of the spot and derivatives markets further reflects Gate's market competitiveness and growth potential in the field of tokenized gold trading.

FORT Robotics, Inc., dedicated to developing a "Physical Artificial Intelligence Trust Layer" security platform, announced that existing investors have committed to an additional investment of approximately 20 million dollars. Among them, Tiger Global led a financing round of about 10 million dollars (Mark Cuban Companies also participated), and this round of financing is expected to be completed this week.In addition, Tiger Global has also committed to invest 10 million dollars in the previously announced common stock PIPE (Private Investment in Public Equity); this PIPE is expected to be completed concurrently with the proposed business combination of FORT and Newbury Street II Acquisition Corp (NASDAQ: NTWO). Including the previously announced PIPE commitments, as of today, the total committed capital related to the proposed business combination with FORT has exceeded 50 million dollars.

According to the Korea Herald, global investment bank Barclays plans to cut 5,000 jobs, about 5% of the company's total positions, while expanding the application of artificial intelligence. This includes 1,000 positions already cut in the first half of this year, with 60% of the layoffs coming from support departments such as developers. Barclays CEO Venkat Krishnamurthy stated in a conference call that the company will apply AI on a large scale, and said, "AI is not the cake, but the frosting on the cake."Previously, Barclays announced a cost-cutting plan in February, but some investors reacted negatively to the scale of costs shown in its semi-annual report. Among peers, HSBC is considering cutting up to 20,000 jobs over the next few years, while Standard Chartered plans to reduce support department positions by more than 15% by 2030.

According to TechCrunch, the American AI wearable device startup Nirva announced the completion of a $25 million Pre-A round of financing, bringing the total financing amount to $33 million.Specific information about the investors has not been disclosed. Nirva was founded in 2025 by former Meta Reality Labs employees Wei Lyu, Jason Chen, and Hanying Hu, focusing on a sustainable AI pendant that listens to the wearer's conversations. The device collects voice samples during the setup phase to identify the wearer and filter out the voices of other speakers nearby. The company claims that audio and transcribed text are deleted by default after processing, but it is unclear whether the voice processing is done locally or in the cloud.

a16z crypto partner Ali Yahya posted on X that he has decided to leave a16z, move to San Francisco, and start a company. He stated that he has been with the company for nearly 10 years, and when he met Chris Dixon, Ben Horowitz, and Marc Andreessen in 2017, he was an engineer at Google Brain working on robotics research, with a strong interest in open source but no knowledge of investing.Ali Yahya mentioned that at that time, Chris Dixon had already laid the groundwork for a16z in the early crypto space by investing in companies like Coinbase, but the company's crypto team consisted of only Chris Dixon, and he hoped to expand the team. Chris Dixon invited him to leave Google to help build the company's crypto business. He expressed that forming the team together and supporting founders' work has been the most meaningful experience of his life, and he thanked Chris, Ben, Marc, and the team.Regarding his entrepreneurial direction, Ali Yahya stated that he is still in the early stages and is most focused on infrastructure that can support an open software ecosystem. He made two observations: current AI is mostly a technology for individual use, but in the future, it will shift towards collaboration among multiple people and multiple intelligent agents, potentially leading to large-scale open networks; the cost of software development has significantly decreased, allowing for on-demand generation and disposal after single use, which will change the software stack and may give rise to new operating systems mediated by AI and an AI-native developer ecosystem. He invited those working in related fields, especially those in the Bay Area, to communicate with him.

The chief Democratic member of the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Richard Blumenthal, sent a letter on Thursday to Tether and its U.S. subsidiary CEO Bo Hines regarding the consulting firm Nxum Group, which Hines co-founded, requesting clarification on the arrangements related to Tether's payments to Nxum. According to The Wall Street Journal, Nxum received substantial payments for providing consulting services to Tether while Bo Hines was still serving as a White House crypto advisor and involved in shaping crypto policies, including those concerning stablecoin issuers.In his letter to Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino, Blumenthal stated that the unusual terms and nature of the business relationship between Tether, Nxum, and Bo Hines raised serious ethical and legal concerns, implying that Tether likely knew that making payments to a current White House official directly involved in shaping critical legislation for its business was illegal and improper. A Tether spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. CoinDesk previously reported that Nxum, as a major campaign advertising supplier for a political action committee associated with Tether, received millions of dollars in revenue, despite having little prior political experience, and recently hired another White House crypto advisor, Harry Jung.Blumenthal has recently focused on the crypto space, including Trump's meme coin, World Liberty Financial, and activities involving Binance, particularly Tether. He has released reports on Tether's financial connections with Iran and questioned its relationship with U.S. financial partner Cantor Fitzgerald. Ardoino criticized Blumenthal this week for ignoring important information and sharing the report with the media before giving the company a chance to respond. The prediction market Kalshi shows a 69% probability that Democrats will regain control of the Senate, and if Blumenthal leads the subcommittee, he will gain greater subpoena and agenda control.

The White House announced that Trump invoked the Defense Production Act, listing oil exploration, production, and other activities as critical defense resources, and authorized the federal government to promote capacity expansion through procurement and funding support. Trump stated that limited financing and supply chain constraints made it difficult for businesses to meet demand, thus exempting certain requirements of the act to accelerate capacity expansion.

The privacy Layer 2 network Aztec, based on zero-knowledge proofs, announced that its V6 upgrade proposal has been approved, but the governance panel currently still shows that voting is open, with the execution date listed on the panel as October 26.According to disclosures, the upgrade will enhance the messaging speed between Ethereum and Aztec, and will provide 30 days of operational funding for the V5 version during the migration period.

According to Politico, two insiders said that the United States is once again pressuring the European Union to relax regulations on large technology companies.

On October 23, a16z General Partner Chris Dixon announced that a16z crypto would be renamed a16z Frontier. The investment scope has expanded from crypto startups to a broader category of frontier technology startups, which are companies that create new technologies, open new markets, and may take years to mature. Dixon emphasized that this adjustment is an expansion of scope rather than a shift in direction, and the team will continue to invest in crypto and related businesses while advocating for reasonable crypto regulation.Dixon stated that as blockchain becomes more widely adopted, Wall Street and fintech companies have normalized the launch of on-chain products, and the importance of the "crypto company" label has diminished; companies should be defined by their business rather than the technology they use. His explanation also pointed to the AI wave, which not only focuses on using AI to perform existing tasks faster and better but also emphasizes the emergence of new native use cases, full-stack entrepreneurship that integrates software and hardware with services, and new networks that connect people with intelligent agents.Dixon believes that blockchain will continue to play an important role, providing the internet with a fast, cheap, global, and programmable funding track. Stablecoins are becoming standard tools for fintech and institutions, and they can also support machine-to-machine transactions and the cold start of new networks. The fund will be co-led by Dixon along with a16z founders Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz, and General Partners Eddy Lazzarin and Guy Wuollet, while the operating team will continue to serve existing and future portfolio companies in areas such as regulation, market entry, talent, marketing, and technology development.

The Securities and Exchange Commission of Thailand (SEC) stated to Cointelegraph that several asset management companies have consulted with them regarding the launch of cryptocurrency ETFs, but no asset management company has submitted an application for the establishment of a crypto ETF. The SEC did not disclose the names of the relevant companies.The Thai SEC also mentioned that it is still too early to determine whether the first batch of products can be approved by the end of 2026; the timeline depends on the preparedness of the applying institutions, the progress of regulatory review, and investor protection requirements. The new regulations for crypto ETFs in Thailand took effect last Friday, allowing asset management companies to establish and list spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs locally.Previously, some companies provided Bitcoin exposure to Thai investors through products linked to overseas ETFs. ONE Asset Management became the first Thai asset management company approved for a Bitcoin ETF-linked fund in 2024, followed by MFC Asset Management, which launched a fund investing through BlackRock iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT).

According to official news, the parent company of the Web3 payment integrated application Gold House has signed an agreement to acquire the Canadian MSB company THREESTONES VENTURES LTD. This transaction is currently entering the subsequent phase of the acquisition process.It is reported that this proposed acquisition is a strategic move by Gold House to expand its digital asset business, fiat-to-cryptocurrency capabilities, and cross-border payment infrastructure, aiming to further strengthen its Web3 payment ecosystem and connect digital assets with traditional financial services.Upon completion of the acquisition, Gold House plans to leverage the regulatory registration and operational capabilities of the acquired entity (subject to applicable regulatory requirements) to explore new opportunities in digital asset payments, merchant services, and cross-border settlements. As a Web3 ecosystem that integrates social networking, digital asset management, and payments, Gold House is committed to connecting digital assets with real-world commerce and expanding access to seamless, diverse payment solutions.

According to Axios, Visa is in talks to acquire the cryptocurrency asset custody infrastructure company Fireblocks, with a deal valuation of approximately $2.5 billion. If the deal is finalized, it will further expand Visa's presence in the digital asset custody and blockchain payment infrastructure sectors.Currently, this news is pending further confirmation, and the specific terms and progress of the acquisition negotiations have not been disclosed.

According to Business Insider, AI infrastructure company Fireworks AI is in the preliminary negotiation stage for a new round of financing, with a target valuation of $30 billion to $40 billion, representing a potential increase of up to 10 times from its $4 billion valuation during the C round financing in October 2025. Related negotiations are still in the early stages, and the target valuation may change; the company declined to comment, and the report did not disclose the scale of this round of financing.Fireworks AI was founded in 2022 by engineers from the PyTorch team, an open-source AI framework under Meta, providing services for enterprises to customize and deploy open-source models based on their own data. The company announced in July 2026 that it had completed a $1.505 billion D round financing, reaching a valuation of $17.5 billion, and stated that its annualized revenue had surpassed $1 billion, with the daily processing volume of tokens increasing from 150 trillion during the previous round of financing to over 400 trillion.

According to TheEnergyMag, AI cloud service provider Nebius Group N.V. has secured a $3.5 billion Senior Secured Financing Facility from Citibank, which will be used to support its global AI cloud computing expansion.