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According to a report from the Beijing Daily client, the Market Supervision Administration of Haidian District, Beijing, investigated and handled the city's first illegal case of assisting pyramid schemes using blockchain and virtual currency technology, resulting in a technology company being fined and confiscated a total of over 930,000 yuan.The technology company involved is an outsourcing service provider for a certain public blockchain, offering support such as operations, market services, publicity and promotion, exchange docking, and maintenance. This public blockchain launched the "Atomic Plan" and "Hathaway Plan," which are centered around recruiting people for rebates, using the number of recruited individuals as the basis for rebates, and requiring participants to invest funds to obtain membership qualifications. Despite being aware of the pyramid scheme applications associated with this public blockchain, the involved company continued to provide technical operations, external publicity, and maintenance of virtual currency trading channels, facilitating the flow of funds and the spread of activities related to the pyramid scheme.Ultimately, the pyramid scheme activities of this public blockchain were investigated by public security authorities, the organizers were criminally detained, and the involved technology company was administratively punished with a total fine and confiscation of over 930,000 yuan for providing facilitative conditions.

According to First Financial News, the Korea Communications Commission (KMCC) has determined that Google and Apple violated the Telecommunications Business Act by enforcing in-app payments, and has decided to impose a total fine of 63.7 billion Korean Won on the two companies. Among them, Google was fined 42.9 billion Korean Won, and Apple was fined 20.81 billion Korean Won.The regulatory agency also issued a corrective order, requiring both companies to modify their relevant business procedures. This penalty comes about three years after South Korea first announced its sanction plans in 2023.

Whale Alert detected two transactions of approximately 142 million and 140 million USDT transferred from unknown wallets to Bitfinex.

According to Bitcoin.com News, the Central Bank of Ireland announced on October 22 that it has imposed a fine of €3,252,618 on Coinbase Ireland Limited for violating customer funds protection and outsourcing requirements in the Irish Electronic Money Regulations 2011. Coinbase admitted to the violations.The regulator stated that the violations occurred between November 1, 2020, and August 19, 2025, with a settlement reached on October 21. The case involves Coinbase Ireland's role as an electronic money institution, including the fiat and electronic money used by customers to purchase crypto assets, and should not be described as a MiCA custodial enforcement action.

a16z co-founder Marc Andreessen commented on the online programming platform Replit and its CEO Amjad Masad's proposed concept of Agent Habitat, believing that more companies will become autonomous driving companies as a result. He stated that the keyword pointed out by Masad is chaos, and quoted his viewpoint that most agents today operate in chat windows, personal accounts, and one-off scripts, holding credentials and data given to them by others, but no one decides what they can access, nor can anyone see what they have done.Andreessen noted that disruptive technologies like personal computers, spreadsheets, and email entered the workplace in a bottom-up chaotic manner, and only later did they require habitats to moderately constrain that chaos. He cited examples such as early employees bringing personal computers into the office, spreadsheets enabling non-programmers to create business models and forecasts, but also introducing hard-to-audit formula errors; email bypassed the information flow controlled by the mailroom in the past. He believes this kind of chaos indicates that employees are claiming tools that can bring alignment and significant productivity improvements.Andreessen also stated that code is the ultimate product of alignment, and expanding the range of code contributors will bring chaos, thus requiring a free-range style of agent habitat rather than cages, but it cannot be completely laissez-faire. He mentioned that an employee from Sumitomo Mitsui Finance and Leasing completed a development process originally planned to take 6 people 6 months in just one week. He indicated that for companies to become autonomous driving companies, they must achieve alignment, and in the future, the degree of alignment may be measured by the richness of the agent habitat; Replit and its clients have already understood this, while most companies have not yet grasped it.

Binance founder CZ recently accepted an interview with Japanese business media PIVOT, discussing his decision to voluntarily go to the United States to plead guilty and pay a hefty fine. He emphasized that this was because he did not want to be a fugitive or evade issues. CZ stated that Binance was only involved in registration-related violations, with no fraud and no victims, and that users have always been well protected. Serving time was an unpleasant experience and a lesson.CZ also mentioned that recently, American banks have committed more serious violations but were only fined $1.2 billion and were not prosecuted. He stated that the world is inherently unfair, but he is no longer entangled in it and wants to focus on moving forward, learning from experiences to do more positive things.

According to PR Newswire, the blockchain asset management firm CMCC Global announced the tokenization of its Crest Fund (Crest) and Liberty Bitcoin Accumulation Fund (LBAF), calling them the first tokenized master fund products issued under El Salvador's digital asset legal framework.The two funds will be issued using Tether's Hadron tokenization platform and will raise funds from qualified investors through the regulated Bitfinex Securities platform, with the subscription period ending on October 30, 2026. Both funds are multi-manager quantitative hedge funds that invest in market-neutral strategies in the digital asset market, including funding rates, cross-exchange and volatility arbitrage, market making, and DeFi strategies. Among them, Crest is denominated in USD, targeting returns above U.S. Treasury yields; LBAF is denominated in Bitcoin, targeting a net annualized return of 8% to 12%.BTCS S.A., a digital asset treasury company listed in Poland and Frankfurt, has agreed to act as a cornerstone investor and plans to allocate a three-digit number of Bitcoins to LBAF, with the specific amount not yet disclosed. The token issuance price is set at $10 per CREST and 0.0001 BTC per LBAF, with a minimum subscription of one token; eligible holders can also trade on the secondary market through Bitfinex Securities around the clock.

According to Bloomberg, the Central Bank of Ireland has fined Coinbase's Irish subsidiary €3.25 million (approximately $3.6 million) due to deficiencies in its outsourcing governance framework and inadequate customer fund protection measures.Regulators pointed out that the company relied too heavily on the U.S. Coinbase Group to execute customer fund protection processes, and design flaws in the system along with insufficient control testing led to a long-term shortfall in the designated customer fund protection accounts.A Coinbase spokesperson stated that the relevant issues mainly occurred during the U.S. banking crisis in 2023, when the company directed customers to deposit funds into other bank accounts of Coinbase to mitigate potential losses from bank failures. However, this practice resulted in the mixing of customer funds with those held by other entities of Coinbase, which did not comply with regulatory requirements.Last year, the Central Bank of Ireland also fined Coinbase Europe €21.5 million for violating anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing transaction monitoring obligations (which included a 30% settlement discount).

A court in New Mexico, USA, ordered Meta Platforms to pay a civil fine of $25 billion. The jury found that Meta made misleading statements regarding user privacy, data processing, and hate speech moderation, violating state consumer protection laws over 43 million times. This judgment amount is one of the highest fine judgments in the history of the U.S. judiciary.

Infineon and NVIDIA announced a collaboration on power conversion for data centers.

The cryptocurrency trading platform Bitfinex posted on X: Since mid-September, Bitcoin has been operating in the upper half of the Keltner Channel on Bitfinex's daily chart.Bitfinex stated that about two weeks ago, Bitcoin fell below the flattening middle line. If the price returns to the upper half of the channel and the middle line turns upward again, it may indicate a recovery of bullish momentum.

The cryptocurrency trading platform Bitfinex stated on X that even though the ETF is in a sell state, new BTC buyers have still accumulated about 570,000 BTC since the end of July.Bitfinex indicated that the average cost for these buyers is approximately $75,000, and this cost has been maintained during each pullback since August.

On October 15, 2026, U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein denied the motion to revoke the $5 million settlement agreement reached between the cryptocurrency exchange Gemini and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), with the fines paid and permanent injunctions remaining in effect. Previously, the CFTC had stated that the original lawsuit should not have been filed. The controversy stemmed from Gemini's involvement in proposed Bitcoin futures contracts.The CFTC filed the lawsuit in June 2022, accusing it of misleading regulators regarding trading safeguards, customer financing, special rate arrangements, and activities that could affect contract pricing; the parties settled in January 2025, with Gemini neither admitting nor denying the related allegations. In May 2026, after an internal review, the CFTC jointly filed a motion with Gemini to revoke the settlement, citing issues with whistleblower credibility, evidence, and enforcement practices. The judge found that the relevant circumstances existed prior to the settlement, and the change in enforcement focus was insufficient to revoke a binding court order; the CFTC still retains enforcement discretion.

The cryptocurrency trading platform Bitfinex stated that among the approximately 60,000 BTC accumulated by Bitcoin whales, most were purchased since late August, with buying prices ranging from about $80,000 to $86,000.Bitfinex noted that this price range is roughly equivalent to Bitcoin's current price. The platform also mentioned that if these whales continue to hold the aforementioned Bitcoin during this round of correction, the price just above $80,000 will receive support.

Bitfinex stated that the average holding cost for long-term Bitcoin holders is approximately $49,300, with a current unrealized profit of about 64%; the average cost for recent buyers is around $74,400, with a current unrealized profit of only about 9%.Bitfinex pointed out that if the BTC price continues to decline, recent buyers may face greater selling pressure first. In contrast, long-term holders have a thicker buffer of unrealized profit.

According to Bloomberg, Bank of America has been fined over $1.21 billion by U.S. regulators for anti-money laundering and sanctions compliance issues. Among them, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) issued a $750 million civil penalty, setting a record for fines related to this agency; the settlement measures from the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) involve 475 alleged violations of sanctions programs, with related countries including Russia and Iran.Regulators also issued a consent order against the bank.

The Finance Committee of the French National Assembly has passed an amendment that proposes requiring the declaration of self-custodied wallet crypto assets with a year-end value reaching or exceeding €100,000 (approximately $112,000). Those who fail to declare may face fines of up to €10,000 (approximately $11,000). This regulation has not yet become law and may still be adjusted in the future.Harry Halpin, CEO of privacy infrastructure company Nym, stated that personnel from the French tax authorities are suspected of selling taxpayer data to criminals, and the new declaration requirements could threaten the safety of holders. Rand Hindi, founder of the privacy protocol Zama, urged French crypto asset holders to leave France, and those who cannot should hire security for their families.As this proposal emerges, France has seen several incidents of crypto asset robberies, kidnappings, and "ransom attacks" in recent years. The committee had also previously passed measures such as considering the exchange of crypto assets for stablecoins as a taxable sale and expanding the scope of the crypto asset exit tax, but the budget revenue portion was subsequently rejected by a vote of 31 to 3, and the related amendments need to be resubmitted.

Bitfinex Alpha's latest report indicates that whether Bitcoin can regain the $84,500 level this week will depend on whether the U.S. CPI data changes market expectations for interest rates and yields, as well as whether spot market buying can follow up.This round of correction is similar to multiple adjustments during the previous recovery phase, and investors with holding costs within the original trading range have not shown significant selling. However, spot buying remains a weak link in the current market, with Bitcoin ETF investors' average holding cost around $84,340, and the current price is below this level, leading some investors to potentially sell as the rebound approaches their cost level.Analysts believe that if this week's core CPI month-on-month increase is 0.2% or lower, it may reduce market interest rate hike expectations and drive yields down, providing room for BTC to rise; if the core CPI reaches 0.3% or higher, it may continue to suppress the performance of risk assets. BTC may fluctuate in the range of $81,300 to $84,500 in the short term.If the price breaks through and stabilizes above $84,500, while ETF fund flows are strong, the market may retest the year-to-date opening level of $87,722; if it falls below $81,300 with continued capital outflow, it may further dip to around $77,400, the true market average level.

According to Euronews, the Finance Committee of the French National Assembly voted last week to pass several amendments to cryptocurrency taxation. According to the proposal, residents holding over 800,000 euros in cryptocurrency assets who move abroad will be subject to an exit tax starting in 2027, covering foreign platform tokens and self-custody wallets, with the tax rate yet to be specified; those migrating within the European Union can apply for a tax deferral, and assets held for 2 to 5 years may be exempt from tax.Additionally, self-custody wallets valued at over 100,000 euros at the end of the year must be declared, or they will face a fine of up to 10,000 euros; the exchange of cryptocurrency assets for stablecoins will also fall under the current unified tax rate of 31.4%.It is worth noting that the committee rejected the budget revenue portion with a vote of 31 to 3, so the aforementioned amendments must be resubmitted this Tuesday and will be voted on again on October 20, with a full case vote scheduled for November 17 before being handed over to the Senate for review.

Coinbase co-founder and CEO Brian Armstrong stated: The company has fine-tuned the open-source weight model Qwen3.5-9B using internal proprietary data, which performs better than cutting-edge models in the specific task of fraud prevention, while also being more cost-effective and faster.Armstrong mentioned: Cutting-edge models are excellent general models, but companies will increasingly use specialized models for narrower tasks, which can operate independently or collaborate with teams. He believes this pattern will become more prevalent within the company.He also noted that Coinbase is making it easier for employees to fine-tune models internally and providing relevant skills in internal tools, with example instructions for fine-tuning Qwen for payment risk audits. He anticipates that some backend services may be completely replaced by this new architecture.