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EIP-8450 proposal update, intended to introduce a quantum-resistant public key registration mechanism for Ethereum validators, using a hash-based cryptographic scheme, including leanXMSS keys and VRF tree roots.The update clarifies that the registration and replacement of quantum-resistant keys are authorized by BLS signature keys, and sets a replacement delay of at least one Epoch and a replay protection mechanism; this proposal is currently still in the Draft stage and has not yet been deployed.

According to TechCrunch, a hacker claiming to be from the "Department of Peace" has reportedly obtained a large amount of employee data from the Okta single sign-on system used by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which was publicly released on Wednesday by the data transparency organization Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoSecrets) as the "Icepick" dataset. The leaked records exceed 40,000, accounting for about one-fifth of DHS's approximately 220,000 employees, involving names, positions, work emails, phone numbers, and office locations, along with information related to internal system permissions. Among these, approximately 21,000 records belong to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) personnel, while about 10,000 records involve the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and its Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), with nearly 1,000 related to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).TechCrunch stated that it has verified the authenticity of some of the data, with timestamps indicating that the data was exported around mid-August. The hacker also provided the data to journalist and hacker maia arson crimew, who then forwarded it to DDoSecrets. Okta responded that its systems and data were not breached; a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security has not yet responded to requests for comment. The report indicates that this is the third incident of data leakage from the U.S. government that has drawn attention in the past month, following the theft of Federal Bureau of Investigation personnel files and Pentagon personnel data.

According to informed sources, in response to market skepticism, Josh Payne, founder and CEO of Nscale, an AI data center developer transformed from a Bitcoin mining company, stated that the company will continue to advance its IPO as planned, with a target valuation of $30 billion. In a recent internal memo to employees, he mentioned that Nscale has an "insatiable" market demand and a "robust capital structure," and stated that "data speaks louder than words."Reports indicate that the AI infrastructure industry is under pressure as Nscale approaches its IPO. The company claims to have signed contracts worth $103 billion, but as of August 2026, it has only delivered 55 megawatts of computing power, while potential contract demand corresponds to a capacity of 10 gigawatts. Its data center projects are also facing delays, safety violations, and operational challenges, with Microsoft recently withdrawing from one of its data center projects in the UK.

Anthropic publicly submitted its Nasdaq IPO application, with the stock code "ANT".Anthropic's revenue for the first half of the year was $16.3 billion. Anthropic may not be able to achieve or maintain profitability in the future.As of June 30, 2026, Anthropic reported a net loss of $80.7 billion for the six-month period. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are leading Anthropic's IPO.Anthropic disclosed that the company expects to pay Google up to approximately $11.45 billion before 2033 and to pay approximately $161.2 billion in rent under its leasing arrangements with Broadcom during the lease term (excluding interest).Anthropic stated that computing and infrastructure costs are expected to continue to increase in absolute terms and will become the company's largest operating expense in the foreseeable future. The company believes that its existing cash and cash equivalents are sufficient to meet operational funding and other needs for at least the next 12 months, but also warned that it may need to seek additional financing earlier than currently anticipated.In terms of safety, Anthropic mentioned that it has recently delayed the pre-training of its next-generation cutting-edge foundational model by more than a month to strengthen safety measures and prevent the leakage of model weights. The company also noted that as AI systems gradually automate AI research and development, associated risks will increase.

China Asset Management (Hong Kong) and Futu's licensed virtual asset trading platform Cheetah Trading announced the launch of a digital public fund approved by the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission, offering 24/7 secondary market trading services. Retail investors can buy and sell tokenized shares of China Asset Management's Hong Kong dollar and US dollar digital currency market funds year-round, with the first phase trading related Class F shares in Hong Kong dollars and US dollars.This service features real-time indicative net asset value (iNAV) display, price deviation alerts, and a 5-minute cooling-off period. 24/7 trading is only applicable to the secondary market, while subscriptions and redemptions in the primary market must still comply with the fund's sales documents and same-day net asset value calculation arrangements.

AI company Anthropic is expected to publicly file its IPO prospectus on October 26, U.S. time, with plans to go public in mid-November. The company submitted documents to the U.S. SEC in secret this June. There was previous market discussion of a $2 trillion valuation; however, as AI-related stocks have come under pressure, some investors have recently lowered their expectations to about $1.5 trillion. The prospectus has not yet been officially released, but Reuters and The Wall Street Journal have obtained a draft.In the first half of this year, revenue was $16.3 billion, compared to $1.1 billion in the same period last year. The net loss during the same period was $80.7 billion, of which about $72 billion came from valuation adjustments of financing instruments such as convertible bonds, rather than actual cash burned. Revenue for the third quarter was $16.8 billion, a quarter-over-quarter increase of about 45%, with the previous quarter's growth exceeding 140%. The company stated that it achieved profitability in the third quarter on an adjusted basis.Future commitments for infrastructure such as cloud computing, chips, and data centers have exceeded $60 billion and will occur over the coming years. By 2025, 47% of revenue will be generated through Amazon and Google's cloud platforms, which are both investors and computing power suppliers. The company plans to allow the seven co-founders to collectively hold 50.1% of the voting rights through a special equity structure, while a long-term public trust composed of non-shareholders will still have the authority to appoint and dismiss the majority of board members. The formal prospectus will need to further clarify the actual revenue contributions from the two major clients, the specific costs of computing power contracts, and whether existing shareholders can sell their stocks first at the time of the IPO.

TechCrunch reported that the conversational AI research and design studio Convovo, led by Cornell University professor Tapan Parikh, released a study stating that when asked to recommend only one candidate for the upcoming U.S. midterm elections, SpaceXAI's Grok 4.7 chose Republican candidates 92% of the time, while OpenAI's GPT-6.1 Sol chose Democratic candidates 97% of the time. The study covered nearly 500 campaigns, with the two models agreeing on recommendations less than 10% of the time.Researchers posed the same question to both models via API, asking for a specific candidate without allowing for avoidance or a tie. The report noted that consumer applications refused to answer. An OpenAI spokesperson stated that ChatGPT is designed to be objective by default, and political conversations should not carry any directional bias; the study tested the developer API, and the prompt explicitly requested a candidate recommendation, which cannot represent the user experience when asking questions through the chat application. SpaceXAI did not respond to requests for comment in time.The report indicated that Grok's responses often cited conservative sources as well as Ballotpedia, OpenSecrets, and VoteSmart, with 39% including Christian conservative voter guides, 23% including Turning Point Action, and 41% including X; GPT's results heavily relied on Wikipedia, the Associated Press, Axios, and Reddit. The study also mentioned that each time Grok was called via the xAI API, it included approximately 1,240 additional input tokens that the researchers did not write, could not view, or remove. Parikh subsequently disabled online search and sampled 30 campaigns, with GPT choosing Democrats in 24 cases, while Grok refused to choose in 27 cases.

According to Catcher Predict's monitoring of on-chain data, there is a prediction of significant capital movement in the Polymarket market. A large whale invested $64,000 in the event "Power Balance: 2026 Midterm Elections" for the outcome "Republican Victory." Based on the current transaction price, the latest corresponding winning probability for this target is 8%.

The innovation exemption for tokenized securities trading venues launched by the U.S. SEC in September is sparking controversy within the industry regarding blockchain qualification standards. This exemption allows eligible companies to trade tokenized U.S. stocks without registering as traditional securities exchanges, but requires their smart contracts to be auditable, public, and deployed on a public, permissionless blockchain.Currently, three companies have submitted operational intent notices to the SEC. TSV LLC plans to use the privacy-focused Canton Network; OKXICE and Kephas Corp. intend to utilize their respective enterprise group's developed Ethereum Layer 2 networks.In a letter submitted on Thursday, the Solana Policy Institute requested the SEC to tighten the definition of "permissionless," focusing on who actually controls the blockchain, including who can validate or block transactions and modify network rules. Hedera advocates for an expansion of the exemption's scope, arguing that only authorized entities should participate in validation, which should not disqualify their network.The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) also called for clarification on which blockchains are eligible and questioned whether stock tokenization should require explicit prior consent from the issuing company, rather than requiring companies to opt out. The financial regulatory advocacy group Better Markets urged the SEC to withdraw the exemption and instead engage in formal rulemaking.An SEC official stated that companies can begin operations 30 days after submitting a notice, provided they meet the exemption criteria, without waiting for SEC approval, which does not imply SEC endorsement of their chosen blockchain. The official noted that the regulatory agency intends to maintain a broad definition to allow space for companies to experiment; further frequently asked questions may be released, but substantive adjustments would require action from the commission.Meanwhile, more companies are opposing the tokenization of their stocks. As of Friday, among the 62 companies initially listed by OKXICE, 22 have raised objections, exceeding one-third. New objectors include Wells Fargo, Arm, and Intuit.

According to Bitcoin Magazine, payment company Block has launched its first Bitcoin advertising campaign aimed at the general consumer, titled "Bitcoin Does," targeting approximately 60 million American users who are curious about Bitcoin but have yet to take the first step. The campaign is led by Maria Pesce, Block's head of Bitcoin marketing, who is responsible for Bitcoin-related marketing across three business lines: Cash App, Square, and Proto.Maria Pesce stated that the advertisements intentionally skip over the science of mining and blockchain principles, directly showcasing how Bitcoin can be used in real-life scenarios. She mentioned that the related creative ideas came from customer research: one Square merchant referred to Bitcoin as "a more honest currency," while topics such as inflation, relief, and private equity formed the narrative backdrop of the advertisement films. Additionally, fixed supply, self-custody, and the choices of younger users are also key points of communication.Block also set up an interactive installation called "Lightning Lake" at the ComplexCon event, where participants could fish for Bitcoin and complete payments through the Lightning Network. Square currently charges a 0% processing fee for Bitcoin transactions, and Block hopes to make the experience of using Bitcoin as commonplace as sending an email.

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 artificial intelligence company Anthropic plans to go public as early as mid-November, with market discussions giving it an IPO valuation of about $1.5 trillion, approximately 55% higher than the $965 billion valuation from financing in May this year. Based on this potential valuation, Spark Capital invested $75 million in 2023, with a stake now valued at around $10.9 billion, having a valuation of about $5 billion that year and securing a board seat, making it the only known venture capital firm with a board seat. After an initial investment of $35 million, Sound Ventures added $400 million, co-founded by Guy Oseary and Ashton Kutcher, entering the market in 2023, with a stake valued at several billion dollars. Menlo Ventures has invested over $1 billion in total, with a stake valued at about $21.8 billion, including a $500 million Series D round, entering the market for the first time in May 2023.Iconiq entered the market in 2025, investing over $6 billion in total, with a stake potentially valued at around $26.4 billion, with the valuation reaching $183 billion at the time of its first investment. Sequoia Capital began investing this year, with a total of about $3 billion, holding approximately 1% of the shares, valued at about $15 billion, having previously invested in OpenAI and xAI. The Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC made its first investment in 2025, accumulating over $4.5 billion, holding about 1% of the shares, valued at around $15 billion. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt invested tens of millions of dollars in 2021, holding about 1% of the shares, valued at around $15 billion.FTX invested $500 million in 2021, initially holding 13.56% of the shares, which diluted to 7.84% in 2024. After bankruptcy liquidation, it sold all its shares, recovering about $1.3 billion, with actual earnings around $800 million. Based on the undiluted 7.84% and the $1.5 trillion valuation, the theoretical value is about $117.6 billion, approximately $116.3 billion higher than the actual selling price, with calculations not accounting for subsequent financing dilution. In 2024, FTX sold all its Anthropic shares in batches, with the first batch involving about $884 million in transactions with 24 buyers. The Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund Mubadala's affiliate ATIC bought about $500 million, Jane Street purchased $100 million, and a Fidelity fund bought $45 million. Lightspeed holds less than 2%, and Google, Amazon, NVIDIA, Microsoft, as well as Founders Fund, Coatue, Altimeter, and others have also invested, but public holding data is not complete enough to accurately calculate returns for each.

Early investment institution ZhenFund has launched Ask AI on its official website. Entrepreneurs can directly inquire about which teams ZhenFund has invested in, what fields they are currently focusing on, and what activities are suitable for them.ZhenFund has compiled publicly available information about its investment team, invested companies, areas of interest, entrepreneurial activities, and contact information into a bilingual zhenfund.md. After users click on any AI entry point, the website will redirect to Kimi, ChatGPT, Claude, or DeepSeek, and pre-fill the prompts, allowing the model to read the document before answering questions.

According to Bloomberg, Amazon's threat intelligence team discovered that hackers attempted to exploit related vulnerabilities days before the public disclosure of two security vulnerabilities in PHP. After the vulnerabilities were disclosed on Wednesday, hacker activities further expanded. Amazon stated that the related vulnerabilities are being widely exploited but did not disclose specific victim information.Cybersecurity company Palo Alto Networks found that there are over 22.6 million exposed instances worldwide with related vulnerabilities. Wiz researchers estimate that the vulnerabilities could affect about 70% of the internet and have existed for over a decade, while Matt Hull, Vice President of Cyber Intelligence and Response at NCC Group, warned that some vulnerable systems may have already been compromised or even implanted with backdoors.

Arc launched the ecological portal Arc Portal (portal.arc.io), where users can complete asset exchanges, transfers, and yield operations, as well as browse applications developed based on Arc. Arc Portal also supports enabling AI agents, with the limits and permissions set by the users themselves.

According to Catcher Predict monitoring on-chain data, significant capital movements are predicted in the Polymarket market. A large whale invested $50,000 in the event "Power Balance: 2026 Midterm Elections" for the outcome "Republican Victory." Based on the current transaction price, the latest corresponding winning probability for this target is 8.82%.

According to Jinshi reports, from early September to mid-October, the super political action committee affiliated with President Trump invested $277 million to support Republican candidates in the midterm elections, while the committee also raised an additional $25 million during the same period.According to the latest documents submitted to the Federal Election Commission, donors include casino mogul Stephen Wynn, Blackstone Group's Stephen Schwarzman, and billionaire Diane Hendricks, among others, who made large donations. Since its establishment two days after Trump won his second term, MAGA Inc. has raised a total of $449 million. Reports indicate that this fundraising scale is unprecedented for a president starting a second term.This funding further strengthened the Republican camp's finances. Currently, the Republican Party and its three affiliated super political action committees have raised a total of $2.1 billion, far exceeding the $1.3 billion raised by the Democratic camp.

According to a post by Bitcoin News on the X platform, Super League shareholders approved the relevant transaction on October 16, with Metaplanet injecting 2,100 BTC and 2.5 million USD to acquire 44.86 million shares at a price of 3 USD per share.After the transaction is completed, the company will be renamed Superplanet, and the stock ticker will change to SUPA, with Metaplanet holding over 90% of the shares during a five-year lock-up period. Superplanet plans to further purchase Bitcoin by issuing perpetual preferred shares, with the transaction expected to be completed in the fourth quarter.