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Cailian Press reported on October 22 that a joint report released by Google, Temasek, and Bain & Company shows that the number of generative AI users in Southeast Asia reached approximately 243 million in less than three years, accounting for 58% of the local labor force, with a penetration rate about four times that of mobile internet. Only 1% to 2% of the local population pays for personal AI services.Florian Hoppe, a partner at Bain & Company, stated in an interview that businesses can achieve AI commercialization through e-commerce, digital advertising, and other operations without having to rely entirely on consumers paying directly. They can also use AI to improve e-commerce conversion rates and handle routine customer inquiries. The report noted that about 80% of customer inquiries on the e-commerce platform Shopee are handled by AI chatbots, with the cost per customer contact decreasing by 30% year-on-year. In early cases, companies that applied AI saw a year-on-year increase in conversion rates of 10%, with the average spending per order increasing by as much as 75%.The report also stated that the total value of goods traded in Southeast Asia's digital economy is expected to grow by 17% year-on-year to $368 billion by 2026, and is projected to exceed $1 trillion by 2035. Among these, the online travel market is expected to grow by 10% to $59 billion, online media revenue is expected to grow by 22% to $44 billion, and the ride-hailing and food delivery market is expected to grow by 15% to $40 billion. The total value of goods traded in Southeast Asia's e-commerce market is projected to be $226 billion in 2026, an 18% year-on-year increase.

According to official news from Bitget, the platform announced the acquisition of the digital asset exchange and brokerage GMO-Z.com Cryptonomics (Thailand) Co., Ltd., headquartered in Bangkok. This acquisition involves the complete shares of the target company held by GMO Internet and its related subsidiaries.GMO-Z.com Cryptonomics (Thailand) holds licenses for digital asset exchange and brokerage business in Thailand. This acquisition will leverage its existing compliance foundation and local market experience to strengthen Bitget's localized operational capabilities in Thailand and further improve the strategic layout in the Southeast Asian market.Bitget CEO Gracy Chen stated that Thailand is an important digital asset market in Southeast Asia, and this acquisition will help Bitget establish a localized operational system, gradually expanding its global trading service capabilities in the Thai market while complying with local regulatory requirements.

According to Catcher Predict monitoring, in the market prediction on Polymarket for the event "Dota 2: Royal Bear vs Xipto Esports - DreamLeague Southeast Asia Closed Qualifier Playoffs," the "O/U 4.5 games" sub-market's "Over" option win rate has experienced significant fluctuations, dropping from 50% an hour ago to the current 31.5% (a fluctuation of 18.5%). Please note the impact of related breaking news.

Ledger announced the progress of the investigation into the hardware wallet implantation attack. According to its disclosure, an organized crime group spent months purchasing genuine Ledger devices, disassembling them to implant custom hardware specifically designed to steal mnemonic phrases, and then reintroducing them to the market through Southeast Asian distribution channels.The group also established a supporting system for collecting mnemonic phrases, asset theft, and money laundering, with Ledger stating that the scale of their investment reached several million dollars. Ledger emphasized that this incident is a localized distribution channel attack, and its chips, operating system, and servers were not compromised.The company has requested authorized distributors and resellers in Southeast Asia and Hong Kong to suspend sales and implement new security regulations, including prohibiting the display of devices on shelves or in display areas, as well as banning the resale of returned devices.

According to an official post from Ledger, its security team Ledger Donjon is investigating Ledger signing devices sold by the Southeast Asian distributor CryptoBilis, which have been implanted with unauthorized hardware components. Ledger confirmed this matter on October 10 regarding a device belonging to an affected user. Donjon's analysis shows that the implant is located within the device's casing and can read the screen display content—decoding the 24-word recovery mnemonic during the initial setup and transmitting it externally via LTE through a built-in eSIM; this component does not alter the security chip, system, or transaction signature.Currently, all confirmed financial losses related to the incident disclosed on October 9 involve devices sold by CryptoBilis. CryptoBilis has stopped selling Ledger devices. The total number of affected users and the amount of losses have not yet been verified, and Ledger is investigating similar implant reports from other distributors and regions.

The cryptocurrency hardware wallet manufacturer Ledger is investigating a theft incident involving Southeast Asian users, who had purchased devices through the distributor CryptoBilis.Ledger has requested CryptoBilis to suspend sales and shipments and advised users who purchased devices through this distributor in the past 90 days not to initialize their devices; if they have already completed the setup, they should create a new Ledger signing device using a new mnemonic phrase and transfer their assets to the new wallet.On-chain investigator Specter estimates that this incident has led to the theft of hundreds of wallets on the Bitcoin, Ethereum, and TRON networks, with losses exceeding 86 million dollars. Security researcher tanuki42 previously estimated the losses to be over 72 million dollars and stated that the amount is still increasing. The specific cause of the incident and whether the involved devices have security vulnerabilities are still under investigation.

According to a report by South Korea's Small and Medium Business News on September 28, industry insiders stated that SK Hynix has initiated the foundational engineering required for establishing a semiconductor factory in the Tohoku region of Japan. One insider mentioned that it is still unclear whether the project will be an independent factory or a joint venture with Kioxia, but local groundwork is underway, and SK Hynix has also requested domestic component suppliers in South Korea to expand their supply.The report noted that as of a month ago, SK Hynix's stance on building a memory semiconductor factory in Japan was still "under research," and they stated that "there are no specific decisions." In response to this news, SK Hynix indicated that the Japanese memory semiconductor factory is still in the research phase, with no further advancements at this time.The report also mentioned that SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won stated in August this year that they are studying the establishment of a joint venture memory semiconductor factory in Japan, with the Tohoku region subsequently seen as a strong candidate. The Tohoku region of Japan and Iwate Prefecture have gathered semiconductor and material component companies such as Kioxia's Kitakami factory, Japan Semiconductor, Ancor Technology, Denso, and Tokyo Electron.

The Southeast Asian cryptocurrency industry is expected to double its funding to $680 million by 2026, with Singapore taking the lead.Japan's Metaplanet faces shareholder backlash due to the executive stock incentive plan.

The latest report from the market intelligence platform Tracxn shows that since 2026, the Southeast Asian blockchain industry has accumulated $680 million in equity financing, more than double the $319 million for the entire year of 2025. However, this round of recovery is mainly driven by a few mature companies: only 25 rounds of financing were completed this year, compared to 46 rounds in 2025 and a peak of 206 rounds in 2022; the $400 million Series D financing of the cryptocurrency exchange Crypto.com accounted for nearly 60% of the total.From a segmented perspective, crypto financial services are the biggest beneficiaries, receiving a total of $498 million in financing this year (19 rounds), a year-on-year increase of 48.4%; tokenization platforms received $114 million, and decentralized application development platforms received $77 million. Among the 3,957 blockchain companies tracked by Tracxn, 1,323 have received equity financing, but only 167 have entered Series A and beyond, 50 have entered Series B, 14 have entered Series C, and only 4 have entered Series D and beyond.In terms of geography, Singapore dominates the Southeast Asian crypto investment market, accounting for 82.5% of the region's cumulative blockchain financing amount of $6.2 billion, and has 2,285 tracked companies, while Jakarta, ranked second, accounts for only 3%. In terms of exits, there have been 43 acquisitions and 4 IPOs in the region, including SBI Group's acquisition of the Singapore exchange CoinHako and Bybit's acquisition of NOBI. Southeast Asia has produced 6 blockchain unicorns to date, including Sygnum, Bitkub, Sky Mavis, and Amber Group.

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) of the U.S. Department of the Treasury released an analysis and alert on Thursday, linking approximately $12.7 billion in suspicious financial activities to cryptocurrency investment scams operated by Southeast Asian parks. About 1,300 institutions submitted 33,904 suspicious activity reports covering the period from September 2023 to December 2025. Cryptocurrency-focused money service businesses submitted 55% of the reports, involving $5.5 billion; banks submitted 41%, involving $6.4 billion; and securities firms accounted for the remaining $784.5 million.The number of reports has been growing at an average monthly rate of 10.9%, with the amount involved increasing by 18%. Scammers used at least 22 types of digital assets, with Ethereum, USDT, and USDC being the most common. On-chain analysis shows that regardless of the asset victims initially purchased, the funds are almost always converted into stablecoins, with nearly all converted to USDT, and then transferred through DeFi protocols or exchanges outside the U.S. Scammers also reused collection addresses across multiple victims, which is one way some institutions identified this pattern.The report indicates that about 25% involved elderly individuals, which is comparable to the 24.4% of the population that is over 60 years old, leading FinCEN to conclude that the elderly are not disproportionately targeted. The FBI estimates that in 2024, the U.S. population over 60 lost $4.8 billion to scams. These parks are primarily located in Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar, and U.S. authorities have seized over $25 million related to the associated scams this year.

Web3 fitness application BRTFit announced that it is preparing for significant expansion in the Southeast Asia region and reiterated the arrangement for the distribution of 1 million BRT genesis airdrops. The final weighting will be 50% tBRT snapshot and 50% valid invited users. The genesis airdrop is not only aimed at early users; new joiners can also improve their ranking by staying active, exercising continuously, and inviting real users.Regarding the testnet rules, according to the latest iOS application version, if users stop exercising and do not meet the specified activity conditions, the testnet mechanism may deduct 10% of their total tBRT holdings. BRTFit calls on users to exercise more, invite more, and stay active to compete for shares of the genesis airdrop, and it states that the Southeast Asian market is coming soon.BRTFit is an application based on the BNB Chain's Move to Earn and DePIN direction, combining exercise data with token incentives, allowing users to join the ecosystem by searching for relevant entry points.

According to DIGITIMES, the NB supply chain has reported that brand manufacturers are significantly returning to production in China, with "returning to China for production" becoming a new trend. Brands such as HP, ASUS, and Acer have recently noticeably reduced their originally planned capacity shifts to Southeast Asia, with production focus returning to Chongqing or Kunshan in China, and increasing orders to Chinese ODM or EMS manufacturers and the proportion of private label products. This involves production lines at Quanta, Inventec's Thailand factories, and Compal, Wistron’s Vietnam factories, which may be affected by customer transfers. Lenovo, Dell, and Apple, on the other hand, remain relatively unchanged.The supply chain indicates that after the U.S. equivalent tariffs were ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, the impact of substitute tariffs is smaller, and the production costs for NB in Southeast Asia are on average $9 higher per unit than in China. The gross profit margin for brand manufacturers per unit of NB is mostly between 3% to 10%. Based on a low-priced model with an average price of about $300, the $9 difference is close to or even exceeds their profit, resulting in unprofitable shipments. Local Chinese governments are also demanding increased production due to reduced tax revenues, or they will reclaim past subsidies, creating a pull for returning production.Relevant ODM personnel stated that they will respect customer decisions, and if they cannot take on a single product, they will shift production locally to servers and other product lines such as networking. Lenovo is more cautious due to its diversified layout, with limited relocation; Dell has not significantly returned due to the high proportion of U.S. government orders; Apple targets the high-end market and promotes automation, with the main reason for relocating MacBook production from Shanghai being the pandemic-related supply chain disruptions, and its plans in Vietnam remain unchanged to date.

According to official news, Fuyo Markets, a brand new prediction trading platform designed for the Southeast Asian market incubated by CMC Labs, has been launched.Fuyo Markets offers a range of unique market categories, including 1-minute cryptocurrency predictions (the fastest in the industry, exclusively provided by Fuyo Markets), "Trending Markets" that closely follow real-world hot events, regional markets focusing on local stocks and businesses in Southeast Asia, and "Sad Markets" designed around bear market conditions.The platform supports 10 Southeast Asian languages and integrates Binance Connect fiat payment functionality; Fuyo Markets is committed to providing a simple, accessible, and culturally preferred prediction trading experience for the new generation of traders in the region.

According to Jinshi reports, the UK Maritime Trade Operations Office stated that a cargo ship was attacked 20 nautical miles northeast of Haiseb in the Strait of Hormuz.

According to Jinshi reports, on August 1, the Southern Theater Command of the People's Liberation Army organized joint sea and air exercises in the territorial waters, airspace, and surrounding maritime areas of Huangyan Island. This action is a necessary measure in response to the current situation in the South China Sea and the actions of certain regional countries that undermine peace and stability in the area, aiming to test and enhance the troops' practical capabilities in safeguarding national territorial sovereignty and maritime rights.

According to Bloomberg, Thailand's True Internet Data Center is seeking approximately $2 billion in equivalent loans to build new data center facilities to help Thailand develop into a regional AI and cloud services hub.In terms of financing structure, the loan will be divided into three parts, with about $1.8 billion denominated in US dollars, and the other two parts denominated in Thai baht. Sources familiar with the matter requested anonymity as the details of the transaction have not yet been publicly disclosed.

According to Jinshi, the Southern Theater Command of the People's Liberation Army of China has organized combat readiness patrols in the territorial waters and airspace around Huangyan Island.

SBI Holdings announced that it has completed the acquisition of a majority stake in the Singapore cryptocurrency platform Coinhako on July 16 and will include it within its consolidated subsidiaries.The transaction has received the necessary approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore.

The predictive behavior AI network THEA, focused on risk markets, has completed a $8 million financing round to build its coordination layer based on Solana and expand its AI infrastructure. This round of financing was led by Maven11 Capital, Spartan Group, Manifold Trading, Hack VC, and Fisher8 Capital.Founded in 2024 and headquartered in the Cayman Islands, THEA's AI model is trained on over 35 billion real-world decision data, with its core product providing predictive behavior AI for risk markets. The company plans to launch THEA Network—a coordination layer that routes inference requests and settles transactions on Solana while keeping large-scale data processing off-chain. THEA also plans to introduce a utility token to tokenize access to its autonomous system.

According to monitoring by Catcher Predict, in the event "Dota 2 OG vs Grind Back Southeast Asia Qualifiers" on the prediction market Polymarket, the win probability for the sub-market "Match Winner" for the option "OG" has experienced significant fluctuations, rising from 59.5% an hour ago to the current 84.5% (a fluctuation of 25%). Please note the impact of relevant breaking news.