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U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal has launched an investigation into the payment of approximately $6.3 million by the stablecoin issuer Tether to the consulting firm Nxum. Nxum was co-founded by former White House cryptocurrency advisor Bo Hines, who holds one-third of the company's shares. On October 22, Blumenthal sent a letter to Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino, requesting the contracts between the two parties, cryptocurrency payment records, wallet addresses, and communication content.Tether is accused of paying Nxum $415,000 per month since May 2025 for strategic communications, lobbying, and public relations services. Blumenthal pointed out that Bo Hines, while serving as the executive director of the White House Digital Assets Advisory Committee, still held shares in Nxum and coordinated affairs with the company through encrypted communication applications. He also questioned whether Tether transferred cryptocurrency through the marketing company Notorious and then allocated funds to Nxum shareholders. Tether began directly contracting with Nxum after August 2025 and hired Bo Hines to oversee the newly established U.S. operations. Blumenthal has requested that Tether, Nxum, and related parties respond by November 6, noting that the relevant allegations have not yet formed a legal determination, and Tether has not publicly responded.

Hyperliquid Strategies has expanded its stock buyback program from $30 million to $100 million, with approximately $72 million remaining, and the deadline extended to October 31, 2027.The company's dashboard shows that it holds approximately 38.8 million HYPE, valued at about $2.96 billion.

According to a report by Reuters, as of Friday, 22 companies have submitted objections against listing their U.S. stocks in tokenized form on the tokenized stock platform OKXICE, jointly launched by OKX and the Intercontinental Exchange, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange. The latest batch of companies opposing includes Wells Fargo, Arm Holdings, and Intuit, following Microsoft and Alphabet, the parent company of Google, who joined the opposition the previous week. Among the 22 companies mentioned, 16 are listed on Nasdaq, while only 6 are listed on the New York Stock Exchange.Nasdaq issued guidance in September regarding the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's innovation exemption mechanism, reminding issuers that "they must be cautious about their own participation," and stated that the consequences for liquidity, price discovery, and long-term shareholder value may not become apparent until the experiment has progressed for some time. Andrew Cuomo, co-chairman of OKXICE and former governor of New York, indicated that more objections are expected for the joint venture platform, as companies wish to avoid being among the first to test this stock model.Earlier this month, the joint venture platform submitted documents to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, planning to provide tokenized stock listings for 62 companies. Cointelegraph sought comments on Intuit's decision to withdraw from the plan but did not receive an immediate response; spokespeople for Wells Fargo and Arm Holdings declined to comment.

Cboe Clear U.S., a subsidiary of the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), has received approval from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to expand its clearing business scope.

According to The Washington Post, based on data from the Federal Election Commission (FEC), the top 50 donors before the 2026 midterm election cycle have collectively contributed approximately $2.39 billion, with about $1.54 billion going to the Republican camp, about $590 million to the Democratic camp, and approximately $259 million to special interest groups.The cryptocurrency industry holds several positions among the major donors. Coinbase ranks 11th with approximately $57.7 million, while Gemini founders Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss have donated a total of about $55.3 million, placing them 12th; Ripple contributed about $49.6 million, and Foris Dax about $38.6 million. Among individual donors, Elon Musk leads with approximately $369 million, with his funds primarily directed towards super PACs and related organizations supporting Republican candidates.

According to Fortune, Robinhood Ventures Fund I announced today that it has completed an investment in Cognition, with a total investment amount of approximately 10 million dollars.Cognition was founded in 2024 and developed the first autonomous software engineer, Devin. Devin is capable of independently completing project planning, code writing, testing, and production environment deployment. By delegating repetitive engineering tasks to AI agents, engineers can focus more on architectural design, system planning, and complex problem solving.Currently, Devin has been deployed in some of the largest and most complex institutions globally, including Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Wayfair, Mercedes-Benz, and Nubank. Recently, based on the current revenue level annualized, Cognition's revenue has exceeded 1 billion dollars.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury has released proposed rules for the implementation of the COINS Act, planning to further expand restrictions on foreign investments in sensitive technology sectors concerning certain "countries of concern." The current system primarily covers entities related to China, and the proposed rules aim to tighten restrictions in areas such as AI and semiconductors, extending the regulatory framework to more sensitive technologies and countries.In the field of AI, some investments that can still be made under the current rules after declaration are proposed to be further prohibited; in the semiconductor sector, high-bandwidth memory, photonic chips, and radiation-resistant chips are also included in the scope of stricter restrictions. Meanwhile, biotechnology has been added as a key regulatory area, involving directions such as brain-computer interfaces and automated laboratory software.

According to Fortune, Robinhood Ventures has invested 10 million dollars in the AI programming tool company Cognition. Earlier this year, Robinhood Ventures had already invested 75 million dollars in OpenAI.This reinvestment in Cognition signifies its multi-target layout strategy in the field of AI development tools.

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.