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According to CoinDesk, the cryptocurrency exchange MNX, developed by the prediction market platform Manifold Markets, officially launched on Tuesday, offering futures contracts linked to the valuations of private AI companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic, DeepSeek, and Moonshot. The platform is built on the MegaETH blockchain and completed a $6.4 million funding round in June, led by Village Global.Compared to existing products from OKX and Bitget, MNX's contracts expire at the end of 2027 and do not charge periodic funding rates; the perpetual contracts offered by Bitget and OKX have no expiration date. Max Killberg from Village Global stated that AI is driving one of the largest investment cycles in history, but the financial infrastructure surrounding it remains quite underdeveloped. The organization hopes to build financial markets around AI rather than just betting on another prediction market.Stephen Gruggett, co-founder of Manifold Markets, indicated that MNX's model is better suited for private companies like OpenAI and Anthropic, which have infrequent equity trades and are difficult to price. Traders can use up to three times leverage, with prices determined by trading activity on the MNX platform rather than external price sources.If the company is still not publicly listed when the contracts expire, the exchange will use public valuations from funding rounds, investment funds, or secondary markets; MNX currently does not serve U.S. customers but plans to obtain the necessary licenses and intends to launch markets covering a broader range of the AI economy, including company revenue, employment, housing, AI supply chains, and computing power.

Strategy indicates that its "Bitcoin Banking Adoption Index" rose to 34% in the third quarter of 2026, showing that major banks worldwide are increasingly adopting Bitcoin and digital asset-related services, although the overall situation remains in the early stages. Among them, Fidelity ranks first with 77%, followed by JPMorgan Chase at 47% and BNY at 46%.Strategy states that the increase in the index this quarter was mainly driven by several advancements, including the expansion of Bitcoin ETF/ETP product access, the increase in institutional custody services, and the development of lending services using BTC as collateral.At the same time, progress in the fields of stablecoins and asset tokenization has also impacted the index's increase. As traditional financial institutions gradually explore digital asset infrastructure, Bitcoin-related services are extending from investment products to custody, financing, and financial application scenarios.

According to official news, the stablecoin issuer Tether announced an investment in the Latin American financial infrastructure company EFY Finance's seed round financing to promote the application of USD₮ and USA₮ in the institutional sector.Tether stated that this investment aims to strengthen the connection between stablecoins and the traditional financial system, supporting EFY Finance in developing cross-border payment, account services, and digital asset custody infrastructure based on stablecoins.Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino stated that many regions in Latin America are facing inflation and capital control pressures, and dollar stablecoins are becoming a tool for accessing dollar liquidity, while compliant infrastructure and banking connections are key to expanding applications.EFY Finance currently offers deposit/withdrawal services for USD₮ and USA₮, over-the-counter trading (OTC), wallet, and payment card services, covering local settlement channels for more than 12 currencies and 17 countries. The company has obtained a digital asset service provider license in El Salvador and serves over 25,000 individual and corporate accounts.

According to the announcement from HashKey Exchange, the Solana spot ETF under Pandu officially listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on October 13, with the stock code 2831.HK. The fund directly holds SOL, with an annual management fee of 0.6%.HashKey cited the closing data from SoSoValue, stating that, based on assets under management, this fund has become the largest product among the listed and regulated Solana spot ETFs in Asia. HashKey Exchange serves as the digital asset trading platform for this fund, while HashKey Custody Services provides secondary custody services for SOL, supporting the custody, trading, and redemption settlement of the underlying assets.

According to a report by a financial magazine, the company Zhiyuan Innovation has recently launched a new round of financing, with an amount of approximately 1 billion to 1.5 billion yuan. This round of financing is nearing completion, with the latest valuation at around 50 billion yuan. Regarding the new financing, valuation, and IPO progress, a relevant person in charge at Zhiyuan stated that there is no response at this time.In July 2026, Zhiyuan announced the initiation of preparations for its listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. At that time, some investors indicated that Zhiyuan is expected to list as early as August, with a target valuation of 40 billion to 50 billion Hong Kong dollars. According to relevant requirements from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, if a company applying for listing completes new financing after submitting its application and before listing, it must wait 120 days after the financing is completed to be listed for trading, unless a special exemption is obtained. The aforementioned investors stated that this new round of financing means that Zhiyuan will not be able to complete its IPO within this year.

Multiple venture capital firms in Silicon Valley are competing to secure GPU computing power to provide exclusive resources for their AI startups. a16z established a computing power pool of about 20,000 GPUs as early as 2024 and is negotiating expansion with data center companies Switch and Volta. General Catalyst plans to build a data center for its portfolio companies and has brought in the former head of NVIDIA DGX Cloud in May this year to oversee AI infrastructure operations.Even if AI startups complete their financing, they may not be able to rent GPUs in a timely manner. In April this year, major cloud providers like Microsoft were reported to prioritize allocating computing power to internal teams and large clients, leaving some startups facing months of waiting. a16z previously disclosed that during times of computing power shortages, prices that could originally be secured with a six-month contract might require a three-year commitment. Model training requires a large amount of GPU usage in a short period, while inference demand is difficult to predict, making it easy to waste funds by locking in computing power for several years in advance.a16z is concentrating on purchasing and leasing computing power through the Oxygen project, redistributing it to its portfolio companies, allowing them to access prices and contract terms typically reserved for large clients. In August this year, a16z co-led a $300 million financing round for Volta, which is valued at $2.4 billion, with investments covering both AI startups and data center companies providing computing power. The small venture capital firm Crucible Capital has built a cluster with 576 NVIDIA B300 GPUs for its portfolio companies to test, while also selling some computing power to a cutting-edge AI laboratory. This model allows venture capital firms to take on investments that were previously mainly borne by cloud providers and data center operators.

Goldman Sachs Chief China Equity Strategist Liu Jinjun and his team released a report stating that since the "DeepSeek Moment" at the beginning of 2025, Chinese AI-related listed companies have created a market value of nearly $5 trillion through stock price increases and IPOs. Currently, AI stocks account for 42% of the total market capitalization in the A-shares and Hong Kong stock markets, and 57% of the total trading volume.The report also mentioned that China has always been a key exporter in the global AI supply chain, holding about 50% of the global market share in certain AI power and infrastructure sectors. With the advancement of domestic AI technology, China has gradually established an internal circulation AI value chain that encompasses advanced semiconductors, open-weight large language models, and application layers.

The Japanese Bitcoin financial company Metaplanet announced that the company's board of directors has decided to implement a share buyback through the Tokyo Stock Exchange ToSTNeT-3 off-market trading mechanism. According to the announcement, Metaplanet plans to use the closing price of 261 yen per share on October 13, 2026, as the buyback price, and will execute buy orders through ToSTNeT-3 at 8:45 AM on October 14. The number of common shares intended for repurchase is 96,934,800 shares, accounting for approximately 7.1% of the total issued common shares after deducting treasury shares as of September 30, 2026, with an expected total buyback amount of approximately 25.2999828 billion yen.The company stated that the number of shares to be repurchased will not be adjusted, and the final transaction results will be announced after the trading ends at 8:45 AM on October 14. In addition, Metaplanet had previously approved a larger-scale share buyback plan, intending to repurchase up to 200 million shares through market trading on the Tokyo Stock Exchange from October 14, 2026, to October 13, 2027, accounting for approximately 14.7% of the issued shares, with a total buyback amount cap of 60 billion yen.

According to The Block, KB Kookmin Card has signed a memorandum of understanding with Japan's SBI Holdings to test AI agent-based identity verification and explore cross-border cryptocurrency payments.The two parties will study ways for Japanese tourists to pay Korean merchants using cryptocurrency assets, including stablecoins. KB Kookmin Card is a credit card company under KB Financial Group, and SBI Holdings is a Japanese financial holding group.

AI Proem author Grace Shao stated on October 9 that China has long accumulated a large amount of data, but has yet to see large independent AI data companies similar to Surge AI, Scale AI, and Mercor in the United States. She wrote that the relevant background includes the formation of cutting-edge models and upstream data markets in the United States, while Chinese tech giants have long kept data within closed ecosystems, and the data of enterprises and traditional industries is scattered, with state-owned enterprises unwilling to easily hand over data to external suppliers.The article cites data from the National Bureau of Statistics, stating that by 2025, China will generate 52.26 ZB of data, with only 22.13% of the stored data classified as structured data. An interview with Lin Zhenya, CTO of Benyuan Zhishu, by Data Monkey mentions that there are about 2,000 to 3,000 labeling companies in China, with the top three accounting for about 20% to 30% of the market, while he estimates that the top three in the United States account for about 70% to 80%. The author notes that this is an industry estimate, not an independently calculated market share.The Information reported in September 2025 that Beijing-based company UniPat completed financing with a pre-investment valuation of $1 billion, while competitor Humanlaya's post-financing valuation is close to $1 billion. Both companies received investment from HSG and are reportedly serving Alibaba, ByteDance, The Dark Side of the Moon, and DeepSeek. A Hong Kong Stock Exchange announcement from Qian Baidu shows that the company will acquire approximately 90.91% equity in Benyuan Zhishu for 300 million yuan in June 2026. Haitan Ruisheng's 2025 annual report shows a year-on-year revenue increase of 59% to 377 million yuan.

The Bitcoin financial services platform River released a report stating that enterprises will be the largest buyers of Bitcoin in 2026, having net increased their holdings by 193,000 this year, bringing their total holdings to 1.64 million, accounting for approximately 7.8% of the supply. During the same period, the total amount spent by enterprises was $15.7 billion, a decrease of about two-thirds compared to the same period in 2025.The report states that Strategy and Strive together increased their holdings by 197,000, exceeding the total net purchases by enterprises; as of October, Strategy alone holds 848,000. Other Bitcoin treasury companies collectively purchased only 8,000, and the number of related companies decreased this year after growing sixfold in 2025. Large miners sold 32,800 this year, primarily for building artificial intelligence infrastructure. The number of publicly traded companies holding Bitcoin increased by 10% over the past year, with Robinhood and SpaceX going public in June and disclosing over $1.5 billion in Bitcoin holdings.River stated that its more than 4,000 corporate clients, in a survey conducted in September 2026, on average allocated 20% of their net profits to purchasing Bitcoin, with Bitcoin accounting for 39% of their treasury holdings. In terms of payments, approximately 1 million businesses in the United States can accept Bitcoin, with nearly 30,000 having completed payments, an increase of 36% this year. Block had launched native Bitcoin payments on the Square point-of-sale network in November 2025.

On October 12, 2026, Bulgarian bank Fibank (First Investment Bank) signed a strategic cooperation agreement with the Austrian licensed cryptocurrency service provider Bitpanda GmbH. The cooperation will allow Fibank customers to directly access cryptocurrency asset service technology provided by Bitpanda through the My Fibank mobile application. The article states that Fibank thus becomes the first bank in Bulgaria to offer integrated cryptocurrency trading access to its customers.Customers can apply and, once approved, use the related services through the embedded Bitpanda interface in My Fibank around the clock, with a minimum investment threshold of 1 euro. The cryptocurrency asset services are provided by Bitpanda, and access depends on Bitpanda's acceptance of potential customers and its applicable terms and standards. The article explains that these digital products are different from traditional deposits and financial instruments, and do not come with guarantees or compensation plans.Fibank CEO Nikola Bakalov stated that the cooperation with Bitpanda is the next step for My Fibank to expand financial services as a digital platform, emphasizing collaboration with European technology partners and compliance with applicable regulatory requirements. Bitpanda Enterprise's global head Nadeem Ladki stated that the two parties will bring cryptocurrency services to over 1 million customers in Bulgaria. Fibank claims to be the largest bank in Bulgaria by capital holdings, with core operations in Bulgaria and branches in Cyprus and a subsidiary in Albania.

On-chain derivatives protocol Derive has released a new proposal in its governance forum, aiming to expand its business into the regulated derivatives market in the United States. Community members can review the proposal and participate in the discussion.Derive is an on-chain derivatives protocol aimed at professional traders, offering trading products such as options and perpetual contracts, and employs an off-chain matching and on-chain settlement architecture. The proposal is currently in the community discussion phase, and the specific regulatory path, partners, and timeline will be based on the content of the forum proposal.

SWI Group announced the raising of approximately 900 million dollars in funding to expand its AI and data center business. The company has taken control of the cryptocurrency mining company Genesis Digital Assets, which originally belonged to FTX, and will continue to advance its transformation.

According to the Miner Weekly briefing published by BlocksBridge Consulting, Bitcoin mining companies expanding into the fields of artificial intelligence and high-performance computing are facing significantly different borrowing costs, with lenders increasingly scrutinizing large data center projects. The briefing points out that securing large AI clients is only part of the challenge; mining companies also need to raise billions of dollars to purchase computing power equipment, build data centers, and ensure the power infrastructure required for contract fulfillment. BlocksBridge indicates that large lending institutions have become more selective about data center loans, with decisions increasingly depending on client qualifications, contract terms, and project completion paths.The transition from Bitcoin mining to AI infrastructure by IREN reflects the differences in financing costs: the company secured $3.65 billion in GPU financing in June at a blended interest rate of 6%; in August, it completed another $2.4 billion financing with a fixed interest rate of 9%. The two agreements correspond to different projects and are not directly comparable, but they show that even within the same company, borrowing costs can vary significantly. Financing arrangements may also incur costs beyond interest; in another transaction involving Cipher Digital, Google guaranteed a $1.4 billion lease obligation in exchange for warrants representing a 5.4% equity stake in Cipher, with exercising the warrants potentially diluting existing shareholder equity.The rise in financing demand highlights the overall challenges mining companies face in entering the AI market. Data from VanEck shows that during the peak of the Bitcoin bull market in October last year, mining company debt surged by approximately 500% compared to the second quarter of 2024.

According to Forbes, venture capitalist Alex Lazarow wrote that in the past two years, Stripe, Mastercard, and Circle have acquired American stablecoin infrastructure company Bridge, British BVNK, and Singapore cross-border payment platform Tazapay, respectively, with a total transaction value exceeding $3 billion. These three companies were established between 2020 and 2022, raising a total of approximately $200 million, indicating that stablecoin payment infrastructure is becoming a field where traditional payment giants and cryptocurrency companies are competing to establish a presence.Among them, Stripe announced in 2024 that it would acquire Bridge for slightly over $1 billion; the total value of Mastercard's acquisition of BVNK could reach up to $1.8 billion, including $1.5 billion in base consideration and $300 million in contingent consideration; Circle agreed to acquire Tazapay for $400 million in stock, with the transaction expected to be completed in 2027. The growth in stablecoin adoption, the gradual clarification of regulatory frameworks, and the rising demand for real-time cross-border payments are the main factors driving mergers and acquisitions.Data shows that in 2025, the adjusted transaction volume of stablecoins is expected to grow by 91% year-on-year, reaching $10.9 trillion, close to Visa's $14.2 trillion; the scale of real-world payments is expected to more than double, reaching approximately $390 billion. These transactions reflect that acquirers value not only stablecoin technology but also verified business scale, payment networks, and compliance qualifications.As stablecoin payment infrastructure matures, applications such as dollar accounts, stablecoin payment cards, and cross-border remittances are also emerging, and in the future, more local infrastructure companies similar to Bridge and BVNK may be acquired in various regions around the world.

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 PR Newswire, NASDAQ-listed company TROOPS Inc. (TROO) announced that it has signed a conditional share purchase agreement with EFFORCE Group, planning to expand its digital asset infrastructure business through this transaction.EFFORCE was founded by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and focuses on blockchain technology, digital assets, and sustainability. After the transaction is completed, Wozniak will retain his rights as a shareholder of EFFORCE. TROOPS stated that this merger will combine the advantages of both parties in technology, regulatory compliance, business expansion, and market channels to create a digital asset infrastructure platform covering multiple fields.

On October 12, 2026, the financial technology company Yirendai released a statement through its public account, stating that it had noted the public security report released by "Ping An Beijing Chaoyang" on that day, and that the relevant situation should be based on the official announcement.Yirendai stated that the company operates independently as a publicly listed entity, focusing on financial technology and AI technology innovation. The company mentioned that no direct relationship with Yirendai's business has been found regarding the reasons involved in this incident, and that operations remain normal, with all business activities progressing in an orderly manner.The company also stated that it will strictly adhere to regulatory requirements, maintain compliant and stable operations, protect the legal rights and interests of partners and users, and express gratitude for the attention from all sectors.

According to GlobeNewswire, the Nasdaq-listed Solana treasury company DeFi Development (DFDV) disclosed that it increased its holdings by approximately 22,070 SOL last week, bringing its total holdings to about 2.5862 million, valued at approximately $302 million.The company stated that since the announcement of its second-quarter financial report on August 12, its SOL and equivalent asset reserves have grown by about 12%. Additionally, the recently established $300 million over-the-counter issuance plan (CHAD ATM) will provide an additional source of funding for the continued expansion of SOL reserves in the future.