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The cryptocurrency and fintech investment company Deus X Capital has ceased operations and will officially liquidate on January 31, 2027. The investors behind it will shift to their respective independent investment strategies. The company was led by former Galaxy Digital executive Tim Grant, and Chief Investment Officer Stuart Connolly will remain to oversee the transition. Some of the invested enterprises will continue to operate with the participation of existing shareholders.The Morton family investors behind Deus X Capital are splitting their investment activities. Shane Morton is establishing Darius, which focuses on artificial intelligence, while Owen and Jason Morton have founded 95, which focuses on markets and fintech. Grant will serve as CEO of TensorX, the AI business owned by Darius under Shane Morton. Grant stated that he hopes to become a significant player in the European AI sector.Deus X Capital was established in October 2023, supported by a family office, with $1 billion in existing investments and deployable capital at its inception. Its strategy covers private equity, venture capital, and hedge fund allocations in the fields of digital assets, blockchain, fintech, and institutional capital markets. Its early investments include stakes in Galaxy Digital and asset management company Hilbert Group, with operations in Malta, London, and the UAE.

According to Bloomberg, Shanghai Birun Technology (Hong Kong stock code 6082) plans to raise approximately HKD 4.04 billion (USD 515 million) to support its artificial intelligence business. The company intends to place 130 million new shares at a price of HKD 31.08 per share, with the related arrangements based on documents from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.The placement price represents a discount of nearly 10% compared to Wednesday's closing price. Bloomberg reports that Birun is one of the GPU developers receiving support from Beijing, and this financing is part of a wave of fundraising for Chinese artificial intelligence companies.

The UK HM Revenue and Customs is pushing to expand the investigative powers regarding cryptocurrency asset information, proposing to allow tax authorities to directly obtain customer data from cryptocurrency service providers and update software and electronic record inspection rules.UK cryptocurrency tax software company Recap warned that the proposed regulations have an overly broad definition of service providers, which may include non-custodial wallet software, blockchain explorers, hardware wallet manufacturers, and tax software providers. Due to the public and transparent nature of Bitcoin transaction records, once investors' names, addresses, and tax identities are associated with on-chain wallet addresses, it may expose their long-term asset activity records, increasing the risks of data breaches, extortion, and personal attacks.

Bitcoin collateralized lending is gradually expanding from a cryptocurrency financial scene focused on trading and investment to real credit needs such as tuition fees, living expenses, business operating funds, and real estate, showing a significant change in market usage. Institutions like SALT Lending and Ledn indicate that more and more borrowers are choosing to collateralize BTC for liquidity instead of selling their holdings.Since its establishment in 2018, Ledn has issued loans totaling over $11 billion and expects this scale to grow to $1 trillion in the coming years. Its clients include entrepreneurs and institutional investors seeking operating funds, as well as individuals borrowing to pay for children's education, real estate investments, and short-term living expenses. This trend indicates that the financial attributes of BTC are extending from "tradable assets" further to "collateralizable assets." Borrowers hope to unlock its value without selling BTC while still retaining potential upside exposure.At the same time, institutions like SALT are promoting fixed-rate, long-term products, bringing crypto collateralized loans closer to traditional credit models like home mortgages. Coinbase has also recently launched fixed-rate BTC collateralized loans through Morpho. Ledn further anticipates that similar models may expand from BTC to traditional hard assets like gold, and the boundaries of the collateralized asset lending market are widening.

The cryptocurrency payment company Ripple has expanded into stablecoins, asset custody, and has entered the long-term leveraged exchange-traded fund (ETF) swap financing sector, which has been dominated by large banks, becoming an important participant. According to The Wall Street Journal, leveraged ETF managers achieve target returns through total return swaps and other derivatives, such as amplifying the daily fluctuations of a particular stock or index; banks or brokers sell related contracts and charge fees, then buy stocks or derivatives to hedge their own exposure.According to Morningstar Direct, there are 593 leveraged ETFs in the United States, managing over $256 billion in assets, of which 426 are single-stock leveraged funds, a category that received regulatory approval in 2022. Ripple entered swap financing after acquiring the prime broker Hidden Road, which caters to cryptocurrency hedge funds last year; this business is now called Ripple Prime, which is collaborating with multiple ETF providers and hopes to expand to include other investment managers, including hedge funds.On Tuesday, Ripple Prime announced it would provide prime brokerage, clearing, and financing services to the hedge fund Brevan Howard. Ripple Prime President Noel Kimmel stated that this is a growing and significant part of the company's business. The report cited an example where a fund paid Ripple at a rate of 4 percentage points above the overnight bank financing rate, which as of Tuesday was approximately equivalent to 8% of the fund's assets on an annualized basis; this cost is included in the net asset value of the leveraged fund, separate from the approximately 1% management fee.

Analyst Murphy stated that when the BTC price drops, the liquidity provided by market makers naturally leans towards the Bid (buy side), while traders also place orders at lower prices waiting to take delivery. Data shows that the 5% depth difference in Binance's spot order book reached 80 million dollars when BTC fell to about 83,000 dollars, which is relatively higher compared to the pullback period from September 10 to 16, approaching the level during the bottom consolidation phase of BTC in July.At 83,000 dollars, the buy orders within the 5% depth range roughly cover down to 79,000 dollars, indicating that there is a thick support level in the range of 83,000 to 79,000 dollars, which may reduce the risk of the price being quickly breached. Meanwhile, the difference between the Taker's active buy and active sell transaction volume on Binance has continued to rise during the price decline, indicating an increase in active buying and a decrease in active selling. Murphy believes this shows that traders are not exhibiting obvious pessimism; not only is there sufficient passive support below, but the willingness to actively buy has actually increased during the price decline.

According to reports from Lei Feng Network·Whale Rhino, AI hardware company Loke Technology NOOKLAB has completed several rounds of financing, with investors including Sequoia China, Linear Capital, and others, accumulating a total amount of several hundred million RMB, with a current valuation close to 100 million USD. The two rounds of financing were concentrated at the beginning of this year.Loke Technology's founder Raymond was born in 1996 and has previously worked at OPPO, OnePlus, Anker, and ByteDance, where he was responsible for the second-generation AI glasses in the Byte Ocean team. Its first product, Moonphase Flip, weighs 54 grams and attaches to the back of the phone via MagSafe magnetic suction. The company defines it as a low-disruption AI portable screen, primarily targeting overseas markets. The team currently consists of about 30 people.

According to CoinDesk, citing two individuals with direct knowledge, Kraken's parent company Payward is in talks with Wells Fargo to become its cryptocurrency liquidity provider. Under the potential arrangement, Wyoming-based Payward would supply liquidity for digital asset trading. The individuals requested anonymity as the matter is not yet public, negotiations are ongoing, and an agreement may not be reached. Both Payward and Wells Fargo declined to comment.The report states that cryptocurrency exchanges often serve as a gateway for banks and institutional investors to access digital asset liquidity, providing access to trading venues and assisting in order execution. Wells Fargo previously served as the exclusive capital markets advisor for Nasdaq, which agreed in September to invest $100 million in Payward and deepen collaboration in tokenized stocks and market surveillance. CoinDesk also reported that Payward was in talks last week with custodian bank BNY regarding financial infrastructure collaboration.

Bitcoin Treasuries posted on platform X that the 165-year-old Japanese company Marusho Hotta has been renamed Bitcoin Japan Corp (8105.T) and has newly purchased 5.88 bitcoins, currently holding a total of 17.8 bitcoins.

According to The Information, the former head of Tesla (TSLA.O) Optimus is starting a robotics startup that may raise about 100 million dollars.

According to PRNewswire, the publicly traded company Universal Safety Products (UUU) announced that it will be renamed DeFi Capital Markets on October 19 and will trade under the new ticker "DCM." In the future, it will gradually cease its original product business and focus on asset tokenization, digital assets, market making, as well as quantitative trading and blockchain financial markets.

Illia Polosukhin, co-founder of NEAR Protocol, stated in a live interview at the Digital Asset Summit 2026 held in Singapore that as near.com continues to expand its on-chain services, users no longer need centralized exchanges for "a large amount" of crypto activities. He mentioned that near.com is "almost ready" and has a "large roadmap for continuously adding features," including bank withdrawals, transaction records for tax purposes, and selective disclosure for confidential transactions. He also shared his experience using centralized exchanges, stating that despite knowing the company's CEO, one of his accounts was still deleted.near.com integrates cross-chain spot trading, tokenized stocks, wealth management products, and perpetual contracts into a single interface. Polosukhin indicated that most of the infrastructure for NEAR Intents has been migrated to confidential sharding, keeping transaction activities private, and users can disclose individual transactions when needed. He mentioned that near.com has a lot of fiat-related features coming soon and referenced the collaboration between NEAR and Monerium, allowing users to convert euros in their bank accounts to EURe via IBAN. The ultimate goal of NEAR Intents is to handle "any asset to any asset," such as USD to EUR, SGD to HKD.Regarding tokenized stocks, near.com completed integration with Ondo Finance in September, allowing users to convert euros into tokenized NVIDIA stocks, with NEAR planning to add more stocks from global markets.

According to Globenewswire, the stablecoin payment infrastructure company Noah announced the completion of a $38 million seed round financing, with participation from Endeit Capital, FJ Labs, LocalGlobe, Felix Capital, and several well-known angel investors.The new funds will be used to expand international remittance services, develop regulatory frameworks, and provide cross-border payment services based on stablecoins for businesses and individuals.

Coreweave (CRWV.O) announced its entry into the Indian market, planning to expand its artificial intelligence cloud platform.

The co-founder and CEO of the decentralized perpetual contract trading platform Hyperliquid, Jeff Yan, stated during a fireside chat at the Token2049 conference in Singapore that traditional wealth creation opportunities on Wall Street, such as company stocks, are essentially inaccessible to the investing public before they are listed on exchanges, causing retail investors to miss out on the most significant price increases prior to listing. He noted that certain assets are tradable by only a few people during most of their growth phases, and by the time the public can trade them, the growth has already been captured by a privileged few, making this wealth creation model unsustainable.Yan stated that Hyperliquid's main mission is to expand the accessibility of wealth creation opportunities and encourage more people to participate in the financial system, with income being merely a byproduct. He mentioned that Hyperliquid's success partly stems from its perpetual contracts having no expiration date, which reduces the number of decisions traders need to make and prevents liquidity fragmentation. According to data from DefiLlama, Hyperliquid generated $72 million in revenue over the past 30 days, ranking third among protocols in terms of revenue.Blockchain asset management company Pantera stated in July that perpetual contracts, due to their structural advantages, could become one of the dominant trading tools in the global financial sector, and Hyperliquid has demonstrated the potential of blockchain infrastructure to challenge traditional markets. Jeffrey Sprecher, CEO of the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, called on regulators to create a fair competitive environment for the launch of 24/7 on-chain perpetual contracts. In March of this year, the New York Stock Exchange partnered with the tokenization platform Securitize to advance blockchain-based stock trading infrastructure.

According to the Financial Times, the European Union is considering implementing a universal tax measure targeting large enterprises to tax major American technology companies. This move aims to increase revenue for the EU while avoiding a strong backlash from the Trump administration.

Hyperliquid founder Jeff Yan stated in a discussion at TOKEN2049 in Singapore that in July this year, the HIP-3 market contributed about 51% of Hyperliquid's trading volume at one point, reflecting a significant product-market fit in the related market. He mentioned that users are willing to migrate from existing financial products and try new on-chain markets, indicating a substantial gap in product supply previously and demonstrating users' trust in the execution capabilities of the relevant deployers.The discussion mentioned that perpetual contracts for real-world assets such as crude oil and Pre-IPO have become important application directions for HIP-3. Jeff Yan noted that one of the more concerning changes over the past year is that more markets are allowing users to participate in trading opportunities that were previously inaccessible. He believes that in traditional finance, some assets are often only accessible to a few people in the early stages, and by the time they are open to the public, the main growth phase may have already been captured by a few with access advantages. The financial system should be as open as possible to a broader range of users.Jeff Yan also stated that Hyperliquid hopes to become an open protocol and infrastructure for various financial products and applications rather than directly competing with front-end platforms. Builder Codes allow developers to create mobile applications, institutional trading terminals, and other products without having to build their own underlying systems for matching, clearing, etc., and directly connect to Hyperliquid's market and liquidity. He said, "No one is competing with the internet," and Hyperliquid is similarly more like a layer of infrastructure that can be adopted by different companies.

According to Decrypt, the cross-border payment company Conduit has filed a lawsuit against the stablecoin issuer Tether in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Conduit alleges that Tether unilaterally froze $2.76 million worth of USDT in its treasury wallet on September 24, 2025, and has refused to unfreeze it for over a year.The complaint shows that the freeze originated from a Brazilian police investigation into a third party, Onix, but Conduit claims that the wallet in question was created after Onix's last transaction and has never held Onix's funds. The Brazilian police did not mark the address, and the freeze decision was made independently by Tether's T3 Financial Crimes Department.Conduit states that the wallet freeze has caused a severe liquidity crisis, forcing the company to lay off employees and close offices; meanwhile, Tether continues to earn interest on the reserves corresponding to these funds by investing in U.S. Treasury bonds. The lawsuit seeks claims for conversion of property, unjust enrichment, breach of fiduciary duty, and computer fraud, demanding the return of the funds.Recently, Tether has been involved in lawsuits due to on-chain freeze rights, with two Thai businessmen previously suing Tether for freezing $42.4 million in USDT earlier this year. This case has once again sparked controversy in the market regarding Tether's unilateral power to freeze USDT addresses.

Startale Japan Co. Ltd. announced the launch of a digital corporate bond, with both interest and principal paid in the Japanese yen stablecoin JPYSC. This bond is aimed at individual and corporate investors in Japan and is not issued to overseas investors.JPYSC is issued by SBI Shinsei Trust Bank, which manages the trust assets, pegged 1:1 to the Japanese yen, and is classified as a Type III electronic payment instrument under Japan's Payment Services Act. SBI VC Trade acts as the issuing trustee and is responsible for issuance and distribution, while Startale Group provides the underlying technology. Startale Group CEO Sota Watanabe stated that this bond will test the application of JPYSC in actual interest and principal payments. The announcement did not disclose the bond issuance scale, coupon rate, maturity date, or individual investment limits.