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On October 29, Sony Group announced the launch of the global Sony Onchain Entertainment Incubation Program, aimed at global creators and startups, supporting the development of entertainment-related products and services based on Sony's blockchain Soneium, and exploring new forms of interaction, community building, and value creation between creators and fans.Selected projects will receive support from Soneium's technological infrastructure, opportunities for collaboration with Sony Group companies, as well as support for business expansion, marketing, community operations, and financing. Sony stated that since 2024, the company has selected and supported 43 projects from around the world through the previous two rounds of incubation programs, and the new plan will further focus on on-chain entertainment, promoting projects from technical validation to commercial application.The application period is from October to December 2026, with project selection expected to continue until March 2027. Applicants must have launched or plan to launch on Soneium, and evaluation criteria include the originality of the entertainment experience, intellectual property applications, community building, business expansion capabilities, and market competition conditions, among others.

According to Crunchbase data, global venture capital investment in robotics startups reached $9.9 billion in the third quarter of 2026, more than doubling from $4.3 billion in the third quarter of 2025, with a year-on-year growth of approximately 185%. In the first three quarters of 2026, financing in the robotics sector grew by about 185% year-on-year, with several consecutive quarters approaching or exceeding $10 billion.This year's robotics financing is largely concentrated in China and the United States, with China receiving $13.2 billion and the United States $12.1 billion, while Germany ranks third with $1.7 billion. The largest financing in China includes $900 million for Guangzhou Xiaopeng Robotics and $736 million in Series C funding for Shenzhen AI² Robotics. In the United States, Travis Kalanick's Atoms and Pittsburgh's Skild AI both completed billion-dollar financing, with Skild AI raising $1.4 billion for its robotics foundation model Skild Brain. Germany's Neura Robotics raised $1.4 billion for cognitive robotics.

CoinShares released a report indicating that Bitcoin has shown relative strength this week against the backdrop of renewed volatility in the risk asset market, primarily due to a rebound in spot buying, improved stock market sentiment, and some short covering. Overall, the market is gradually reducing its enthusiasm for the AI narrative and is instead focusing more on whether corporate earnings can meet expectations.The poor performance of some U.S. corporate earnings reports has triggered significant stock price fluctuations, which have also affected Bitcoin to some extent, but it still demonstrates strong resilience overall. Meanwhile, macroeconomic signals in the U.S. remain mixed, with the housing market continuing to weaken. In terms of interest rates, the market generally expects the Federal Reserve to maintain interest rates at the meeting on October 28. The market's expectations for another rate hike in December remain high, with the related probability close to 83%.The weakness in the housing market provides some room for the Federal Reserve to pause rate hikes, but last week's higher-than-expected Consumer Price Index (CPI) and Producer Price Index (PPI) data indicate that inflation remains a key factor limiting a shift in policy. If the Federal Reserve unexpectedly raises rates next week, it could trigger more pronounced financial market volatility due to exceeding market expectations; in contrast, maintaining interest rates and continuing to release hawkish signals would be easier for the market to digest. Overall, the current market remains in a state of intertwining bullish and bearish factors. Improved spot demand, Bitcoin's enhanced ability to withstand stock market volatility, and the cooling housing market all provide some support for the market; however, inflationary pressures have not yet dissipated, limiting the Federal Reserve's room to ease policy. The subsequent trend of Bitcoin is expected to remain highly influenced by interest rate expectations and the overall liquidity environment, with the importance of single industry or market catalysts being relatively limited.

Evan Conrad published an article on October 22 titled "The end of startups," with the subtitle "The coming credit crunch." Evan Conrad stated that within the next six months, most AI startups will be unable to purchase computing power, as global computing power is sold out. To obtain capacity, new clusters need to be contracted, and it is becoming increasingly difficult for non-investment-grade entities to secure online capacity.Evan Conrad mentioned that startups are not investment-grade, thus they are required to pay larger upfront payments. He has seen cases where 100% of the contract amount is required to be prepaid, as lenders and cloud providers are unwilling to take on additional credit risk. He believes that investment-grade tenants are scarce, and due to leveraging and selling to non-investment-grade token buyers, their ratings are downgraded, which he refers to as a credit bottleneck. He anticipates that investment-grade GPU buyers will increasingly demand that token buyers themselves be investment-grade or pay large upfront deposits.In the article, he provides an example where, at the time of writing, B300 could be purchased for $6 per hour and then sold for approximately $30 per hour for inference. He expects GPU prices to rise, and the gross margin for inference layers to decline, making it harder for clients with poor credit to obtain tokens. He proposed that lenders treat GPU clusters as collateral and stated that the physical delivery forward market SF Compute could allow lenders to use GPU hours on a liquidity book as collateral, rather than relying on a single service provider's cluster.

South Korean JB Financial Group announced that it has invested in the artificial intelligence company Upstage through its subsidiaries Jeonbuk Bank, Gwangju Bank, and JB Woori Capital. The three institutions collectively invested 40 billion Korean won (approximately 30 million USD) in its C-2 round of financing, acquiring about 2% equity.Previously, Upstage co-founder and CTO Hwalsuk Lee revealed that the company is considering various capital market options, including an IPO, and is also contemplating initiating a Pre-IPO round of financing.

According to FNNews, South Korea's JB Financial Group announced that it is investing in the artificial intelligence company Upstage through its subsidiaries Jeonbuk Bank, Gwangju Bank, and JB Woori Capital. The three institutions collectively invested 40 billion Korean won (approximately 30 million USD) in its C-2 round of financing, acquiring about 2% equity.Previously, Upstage co-founder and CTO Hwalsuk Lee revealed that the company is considering various capital market options, including an IPO, and is also contemplating launching a Pre-IPO round of financing.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz stated at the Invest in Germany Summit in Berlin that Germany hopes to become a leader in integrating AI in key industries, specifically naming manufacturing, machinery, and the automotive industry. He urged small and medium-sized enterprises to utilize existing data, saying, "Please open the door for AI to use your data." He claimed this is Germany's true secret and real advantage.NVIDIA announced at the summit that it would increase its investment in the European AI sector, planning to support four German startups: Agile Robots, Avelios Medical, Mirelo, and Reflex Aerospace. This is part of its nearly $10 billion commitment to Europe for investing in companies, universities, and research institutions; NVIDIA did not disclose the specific amounts for these four investments. Agile Robots develops AI robots for manufacturing, logistics, and healthcare, Avelios Medical creates hospital management software, Mirelo develops AI models for generating audio from video, and Reflex Aerospace designs and manufactures satellites.NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang stated that AI will only enhance, not replace, Germany's capabilities in manufacturing, mathematics, and science, and called AI a new tool for businesses. NVIDIA is expanding its cooperation with the German federal government and the Industry 4.0 Platform, with both parties signing a joint declaration of intent to promote industrial application AI models. On the same day, Siemens announced a new AI program in collaboration with NVIDIA at its Erlangen plant, stating that the related technology could reduce engineering work in production preparation by up to 85%, and AI production planning could lower costs by up to 20%.

NVIDIA has successfully won central processing unit (CPU) chip orders from the rapidly growing artificial intelligence startup Modal. Modal had previously only used Intel and AMD chips, indicating that NVIDIA has made significant progress in entering this market.

According to cryptocurrency analyst alicharts, during the current Bitcoin pullback, the whale group has adopted an accumulation strategy for mainstream cryptocurrencies.In the past 72 hours, the whale group has accumulated approximately 15,000 Bitcoins, over 166,000 ETH, and 45 million XRP.

According to a report by the Japan Economic News cited by Reference News, the Japanese government has decided to impose additional sanctions on Russia during a cabinet meeting. In principle, the Japanese government prohibits providing operational, maintenance, insurance, and financing services to 35 vessels in Russia's "shadow fleet," which secretly transports crude oil to evade Western sanctions.In addition to the sanctions against the "shadow fleet," the Japanese government will also add 33 Russian military-related groups and 9 individuals to the asset freeze list, including groups involved in using cryptocurrency to evade financial sanctions.

According to a report by the Japan Economic News cited by Reference News, the Japanese government has decided to impose additional sanctions on Russia during a cabinet meeting. In principle, the Japanese government prohibits providing operational, maintenance, insurance, and financing services to 35 vessels in Russia's "shadow fleet," which secretly transports crude oil to evade Western sanctions.In addition to the sanctions against the "shadow fleet," the Japanese government has also added 33 Russian military-related groups and 9 individuals to the asset freeze list, including groups involved in using cryptocurrency to evade financial sanctions.

Lloyds Banking Group and Visa completed their first stablecoin settlement test, settling a total of $750,000 in Visa payment obligations using USDC within 7 days, with funds arriving in as little as one hour.

B.AI announced a major upgrade to its Responses API, which is now fully compatible with upstream standard protocols. Existing models on the platform can be uniformly called through the /v1/responses interface as long as they support the Responses API.At the same time, when B.AI adds new models from integrated vendors in the future, developers will not need additional configuration to automatically and seamlessly integrate them into the Codex client. In this upgrade, the official API full set group adds support for MiMo, Qwen, and Hunyuan series models, while the Mix and OL Station optional service provider group adds support for OpenAI, Gemini, and Grok series models.Developers only need to complete the minimal configuration of the API Key and Base URL to integrate the capabilities of various models into their daily workflows.

According to Forbes, a warning jointly issued by multiple agencies including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National Police Agency (NPA) of Japan indicates that the North Korea-linked hacker group WaterPlum (also known as Contagious Interview) will launch attacks on global IT developers from December 2025 to July 2026 by disguising itself as companies in the AI, cryptocurrency, or NFT sectors and offering fake job positions.Attackers contact job seekers on social media and recruitment platforms, luring them into downloading malicious files under the pretext of technical interviews or programming tests. They successfully infected over 30,000 devices, covering more than 100 countries and regions, and stole data from over 7,000 cryptocurrency wallets. Related funds of at least $10.71 million have flowed into wallets controlled by the attackers.

Coinbase co-founder and CEO Brian Armstrong stated that the CLARITY Act did not advance in the Senate today, which is disappointing. Although bipartisan dialogue may continue and the bill still has potential for follow-up, we can no longer wait for Congress.Armstrong indicated that the SEC and CFTC already have the tools to establish clear rules under their existing authority and are expected to seriously move forward; clear rules in the crypto space will still come. GENIUS is already the current law in the stablecoin sector, with more lenient rewards. CLARITY made some concessions that were difficult to accept, and perhaps this is better.He stated that crypto cannot be canceled once it has been invented, and as regulators bring clear rules, the financial system will continue to be updated.

Less than 24 hours remain until the new pricing for the DeepSeek V4 Flash series takes effect (September 10, 12:00 SGT). With upstream price adjustments imminent, B.AI has prepared an exclusive stacking benefit for global developers to ensure top-tier computing power remains within reach. This upcoming benefit aims to further reduce invocation costs and unleash greater productivity—whether for high-frequency API calls, Agent workflow construction, or large-scale production-level deployments, all can operate continuously and efficiently with a lower burden. Specific benefits will be announced soon, so please stay tuned to B.AI's official updates and don't miss this boost in computing power.

According to CoinDesk, Glassnode data shows that Bitcoin wallet groups have collectively turned to net selling for the first time since early June. Bitcoin fell below $80,000 after being blocked at the key resistance level of $83,000. The current Glassnode accumulation trend score is 0.37, close to 0, indicating selling, led by whales holding over 1,000 BTC.In the previous three months, almost all groups were actively accumulating, with Bitcoin trading sideways around $60,000. Bitcoin is also facing resistance at approximately $79,687, the 50-week moving average. However, the 50-day moving average may cross above the 200-day moving average as early as Tuesday, forming a golden cross, providing an optimistic signal for bulls, which means Bitcoin may eventually break through the resistance zone.

Huang Renxun posted on the X platform stating that Gavin is very accurate. AI is driving the return of manufacturing to the United States, promoting re-industrialization after decades of offshore outsourcing. AI is creating demand, driving market forces rather than subsidizing investments in aging grids and sustainable energy.AI is creating jobs in construction and manufacturing in energy plants, chip manufacturing plants, and data centers. AI is giving rise to new companies and new industries; in just the past six months, AI startups have received $400 billion in investments. Builders must collaborate with communities to develop local projects, earn trust, and create local benefits. The United States has the opportunity to create lasting benefits for communities nationwide and help lead the next industrial revolution.