ChainCatcher

OKX Global Managing Partner and Chief Marketing Officer Haider Rafique announced that after nearly seven years at OKX, he will step down and take a temporary break to focus on family and personal matters.According to insiders, Haider plans to leave before the end of 2026. He joined OKX in March 2020, where he led the brand upgrade and was involved in facilitating the Intercontinental Exchange's strategic investment of $200 million in OKX this March.

A one-time sell-off may have limited impact as Strategy suggests, but for a company increasingly reliant on capital market infusions, the cost of losing a portion of passive buying may only become apparent during the next financing round.

Upbit's official announcement states that due to BitMEX terminating the integration of the travel rule solution VerifyVASP, Upbit will suspend deposits and withdrawals of digital assets of 1 million Korean Won and above with BitMEX starting from October 16. Deposits below 1 million Korean Won will continue to be supported as usual.Manual deposits of over 1 million Korean Won from BitMEX to Upbit will cease at 14:00 on December 18, and any similar assets credited thereafter will enter the refund process, which users must follow to retrieve.

The Hong Kong Stock Exchange published a consultation summary document regarding the shortening of the settlement cycle for the Hong Kong stock cash market, showing broad support for the implementation of a T+1 settlement cycle in the Hong Kong securities market. After consolidating stakeholder opinions, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange plans to complete the relevant transition in the second half of 2028, provided that the market is ready and regulatory approval is obtained.A total of 109 unique responses were received during this consultation, from market stakeholders including brokers, custodians, investment managers, industry associations, technology providers, and investors. Respondents agreed on Hong Kong adopting a T+1 settlement cycle and recognized that this move would help enhance market efficiency, reduce settlement risks, improve capital efficiency, and strengthen Hong Kong's competitiveness as an international financial center.

JPMorgan raised its growth forecast for Google Cloud in 2027 to 107% (previously 70%) ahead of the Q3 earnings report, and increased the growth rate for AWS during the same period to 40%; the increase mainly comes from TPU sales and price hikes in AI computing power, but the return on AI investment has not yet been fully validated.

Lily Liu, the chair of the Solana Foundation, stated in a post on October 16 that they showcased Solana on a large screen because of their deep affection for the Chinese community and gratitude for the warm welcome from the Chinese community. The display refers to the light show on the entire exterior wall of the Citibank building in Lujiazui, Shanghai on the evening of October 14.She mentioned that due to the publicity, the number of registrations for the Solana Shanghai event quadrupled overnight, far exceeding the limit reported to local government departments, and it could not prevent people from flooding the venue. To comply with local requirements, the event will be postponed and will be held when it can better accommodate the size of the community. She apologized to those who came from near and far wanting to participate in the Shanghai Solana event.

According to Bloomberg on October 16, China proposed to include advanced artificial intelligence technology in the export control list, which may restrict the overseas transfer of AI models and chips in order to implement stricter controls on domestic progress in this strategic field.The draft covers 23 AI technologies, including large language models, intelligent agents, chip design, and computing power clusters. Restricted technologies include model weights and source code for products exceeding specific performance thresholds, with relevant policy texts available on the public page of the Ministry of Commerce of China.

Cryptocurrency analyst Axel Adler Jr stated that short-term holders currently hold approximately 4.08 million Bitcoins, the highest since mid-June. This is an increase of about 422,000 since the low on July 29, representing a growth of about 12%. In the first two weeks of October, there was an increase of about 154,000, and in the past week, an increase of about 48,000. He noted that new buyers mostly entered the market in the range of approximately $82,000 to $86,000.As of now, the average cost for short-term holders is about $74,900, with unrealized profit buffer narrowing from about 16% to around 10%. Axel Adler Jr mentioned that $74,900 is the breakeven point for this group, and prices have consistently remained above this cost since August 20. If it falls below this cost, the group will collectively enter into unrealized losses, or increase selling pressure.

Binance Wallet announces the launch of the DeFi API. This interface is based on its Web3 API infrastructure, allowing developers to integrate DeFi capabilities without connecting to each protocol individually, initially supporting 10 EVM chains including BSC, Ethereum, Base, and Robinhood Chain.The interface covers protocols such as Aave, Morpho, and Uniswap, supporting the discovery of DeFi products, tracking positions, obtaining protocol insights, and building trades. It also allows for the creation of trades to add liquidity to supported bStocks liquidity pools. Solana support is coming soon.

Regulation, institutional demand, and technology have converged, and the crypto options DEX has finally found its opportunity. Whoever can break through first in terms of pooled margin and institutional access may become the next Hyperliquid.

On October 16, according to Yicai, Xiaohongshu released a company-wide letter, connecting its internal AI Level 1 department Dots with the company's core infra team, and clarifying that another internal technical organization, hi lab, will focus on long-term technological exploration and layout of cutting-edge technology directions. The reporter for the article is Ning Jiayan, and the editor is DingTalk.The company-wide letter clearly defines Xiaohongshu's positioning as a technology application company, stating that its logic in investing in model research and development differs fundamentally from that of cloud vendors. The letter states: "We have a clearer direction for the next stage: the greatest value of technology lies not only in pursuing model capabilities or computing power scale itself, but more importantly, in the deep integration of models and applications, where technology and products enhance each other to jointly create valuable user experiences in this era."

According to Bloomberg, citing informed sources, Haider Rafique, Global Managing Partner and Chief Marketing Officer of OKX, plans to leave by the end of 2026. Both an OKX spokesperson and Rafique declined to comment.Rafique joined OKX in March 2020, leading the exchange's brand overhaul and driving collaborations with institutions such as the McLaren F1 team and the Tribeca Film Festival. He was also involved in facilitating Intercontinental Exchange's $200 million strategic investment in OKX this March, which valued OKX at $25 billion.

Singapore Gulf Bank (SGB) announced that personal customers can conduct two-way exchanges between USD and USDT, USDC through the mobile banking app, without the need to transfer funds to a cryptocurrency exchange.Customers can hold USDT, USDC, and other fiat currencies in the same bank account, and the service supports 24-hour exchanges from Monday to Friday. Singapore Gulf Bank was initiated by the Singapore Huangpu Group.

Upbit stated that after MANTRA was designated as a trading warning item, and following a declaration request submitted by MANTRA and the completion of the review, Upbit deemed it necessary to further review the current processing progress and decided to extend the designation period of MANTRA as a trading warning item.

In 2025, Ripple announced three major acquisitions: $1.25 billion for Hidden Road, $200 million for Rail, and $1 billion for GTreasury. The total disclosed consideration amounted to $2.45 billion.

UPBIT will stop trading support for Zilliqa (ZIL) on November 16, 2026, at 15:00. The affected trading pairs are ZIL/KRW and ZIL/BTC. Users must complete the withdrawal of ZIL before December 16, 2026.

During the IMF meeting in Bangkok, Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Walsh stated that he would not predict the outcomes of the remaining two interest rate meetings this year and was unwilling to disclose potential actions in advance. He said, "This is a new chapter for the Federal Reserve; we no longer do this." Regarding the recent signals from colleagues indicating "no urgency to raise interest rates this month," he neither explicitly supported nor refuted them. Walsh reiterated that the Federal Reserve will achieve price stability and noted that the global economy has largely aligned with central bank expectations since the interest rate hike in September, while describing the recent actions of various central banks as a synchronized tightening of monetary policy in most regions of the world.In September, the Federal Reserve unanimously raised interest rates by 25 basis points, increasing the target range for the federal funds rate to 3.75% to 4%. At that time, most officials expected at least one more rate hike this year. Despite the core CPI rising by 0.33% month-on-month in September, marking a strong increase for the second consecutive month, and the latest producer price data also being robust, Walsh hardly mentioned this week's inflation report and did not significantly attempt to change market expectations for the October meeting. Reports indicated that during his speech, the dollar weakened, and market bets on an interest rate hike in October dropped from about 30% to around 17%.Additionally, Walsh believes that the U.S. is experiencing significant investment growth and holds an optimistic view on economic resilience and the productivity boost brought by AI, but he warned that the development path will be "very bumpy," and the short-term impact of AI on employment remains unclear. DBS Bank macro strategist Wei Liang Chang stated that Walsh reiterated that artificial intelligence will improve productivity in the medium term, which may help ease inflation expectations and alleviate concerns about the Federal Reserve's consecutive rate hikes. Saxo Markets Chief Investment Strategist Charu Chanana noted that Walsh's refusal to commit to another rate hike led to some bets on Federal Reserve rate hikes falling flat, and related comments did not help the dollar following the release of strong inflation data.

The Shanghai Municipal Cyberspace Administration and the Data Bureau released "Several Measures to Promote High-Level Opening Up in Shanghai and Facilitate Cross-Border Data Flow," supporting the construction of international data centers and supporting the computing power service industry and related cross-border digital services.Promote the construction of the National Blockchain Network (Shanghai Hub), strengthening foundational capabilities such as distributed digital identity, privacy computing, and cross-chain services.

Federal Reserve Chair Waller stated that the Federal Reserve's Productivity and Employment Special Working Group will hold a field hearing on November 16 in the San Francisco Bay Area, focusing on topics such as the impact of artificial intelligence on the economy. Waller announced this arrangement during the IMF annual meeting in Bangkok and mentioned that the special working group will conduct an in-depth study of the effects of artificial intelligence on economic activity and the labor market.In June of this year, Waller established five special working groups composed of external experts to study key areas in monetary policy formulation. He previously indicated that these working groups are expected to submit policy recommendations to the Federal Reserve by the end of this year. Waller did not comment on monetary policy or the outlook for the U.S. economy this time.

Meta released Muse Spark Open: a mixed expert model with a total of 816 billion parameters and 42 billion active parameters, open weights, native support for multimodal, and a context window of up to 1 million tokens, known as the most powerful open-source weight model in the United States to date.