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According to CoinDesk, Ben Edgington, the coordinator of the Ethereum rapid finality research direction, along with several researchers, submitted a draft proposing to reduce the transaction finality waiting time from about 16 minutes to about 4 minutes, improving it by approximately four times.The current goal is to push this draft into the formal upgrade proposal process. The core idea of the draft is to separate the original "block selection" and "finality confirmation" mechanisms of validators, allowing finality to progress at a faster pace and facilitating future adoption of quantum-resistant signatures.Faster finality is expected to reduce the costs incurred by cross-chain transfer services due to capital occupation. The Ethereum Foundation's research provides an example: if a service advances about 1 million dollars per hour, under a 16-minute delay, approximately 267,000 dollars would be pending recovery, which could be reduced to about 67,000 dollars after shortening to 4 minutes.

The Solana ecosystem collectible card platform Collector Crypt announced that its total transaction volume in the past 24 hours reached 24.3 million USD, setting a new single-day historical record. During the same period, platform users opened a total of 123,425 card packs.Collector Crypt's card packs are products that randomly generate cards. After purchase, users must go through an authentication process to obtain tokenized versions of cards featuring Pokémon, One Piece, and sports stars, which can then be traded on the platform.On October 19, Pump.fun integrated the random card pack opening feature and collectible card trading market from Collector Crypt. On the first day of integration, Pump.fun users contributed approximately 20% of the total transaction volume of Collector Crypt's random card packs.

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 official information, the Robinhood ecosystem AI points trading market project Orbio announced the launch of a token issuance platform, with tokens issued on the platform paired with ORBIO tokens. At the same time, the platform is built on Mosh, featuring that part of the token supply is controlled and market-made by AI agents.As a result of this news, according to market sources, the market capitalization of ORBIO is currently reported at 42.33 million USD, with a daily increase of 109.3%. The trading volume of related tokens is small, and price fluctuations are large, so users should invest cautiously.

The Sun Wukong ecosystem will hold a deep roundtable discussion themed "When Buybacks and Burns Become the New Narrative of Web3: What Truly Determines Token Value, Is It the Deflationary Mechanism or Real Business?" on October 20 at 8 PM at X Space.This event will focus on the increasing attention Web3 projects are paying to the trends of token buybacks and continuous burns, exploring how to establish a closer connection between token value and ecological development. Invited industry KOLs will jointly analyze whether reducing circulating supply can bring long-term value, and whether buybacks and burns are a new engine for value growth or a long-term mechanism that requires real business support. Guests will discuss the market logic of buybacks and burns, the value creation of Web3 projects, and dissect the relationship between deflationary mechanisms, continuous business growth, and real user demand.

SolanaFloor posted on platform X that Cardboardtrade, regarded as the Solana version of Papertrade's perpetual contract protocol, currently has an average daily trading volume of approximately 1 billion dollars. It is reported that the platform offers up to 1000x leverage trading for BTC, ETH, and SOL, with a total liquidation amount exceeding 564 million dollars and an open interest (OI) reaching 38 million dollars.A data screenshot provided by SolanaFloor shows that the total trading volume of the protocol is approximately 4.4 billion dollars.

According to The Block, Citigroup Research stated in its latest report that Aave is a decentralized collateral liquidity ecosystem, representing one of the more significant real-world cases in tokenized financial infrastructure.Citigroup indicated that collateral liquidity could ultimately become one of the most important use cases for tokenization.

According to the summary from the Arbitrum Foundation governance forum, the Arbitrum DAO currently has 4 temperature check votes ending on October 22, involving the Ethereum Glamsterdam upgrade adaptation, L1 governance recovery mechanism, treasury ETH transfer, and USDG strategic plan.Among them, the Entropy proposal suggests setting USDG as one of the core strategic plans of the Arbitrum DAO and additionally allocating 100 million ARB from the DAO treasury to the DRIP budget, while adjusting the project cycle and allowed uses. Furthermore, it is proposed to direct the net fees from AEP into ATMC and convert them into USDG to support the growth of USDG on Arbitrum.

MiniMax announced that M3.1 Flash has officially been released, and the earlier version, Space Bunny, which topped global rankings and processed over 200T tokens, is its predecessor.M3.1 Flash achieved scores of 62% on Automation-Bench, 30% on ALE, 74% on DeepSWE, and 91% on BabyVision in tasks such as Cowork, Coding, and Visual Reasoning.

According to official news, Hyperliquid's first L2 network Elysium will launch its mainnet on November 9.It is reported that Elysium is a general-purpose, high-performance L2 network built specifically for Hyperliquid, settling to HyperEVM and co-located with HyperCore, with HYPE as its native gas token. Elysium currently operates Conduit's G2 sequencer on an architecture that meets SOC II Type 2 standards.

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.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin shared that the cost of Bitcoin mining is roughly half derived from capital expenditures on computing power equipment and the other half from electricity consumption; in contrast, the cost of AI inference is almost entirely dominated by capital expenditures on computing power. This difference reflects the distinct cost structures of the two computing businesses. Bitcoin miners need to continuously pay for electricity and determine their profit margins based on mining machine efficiency, coin prices, and network difficulty changes; AI inference, on the other hand, relies more on investments in expensive hardware like GPUs, as well as equipment utilization and computing efficiency.The industrial boundaries of both are also changing. As the demand for AI computing power grows, some Bitcoin mining companies are beginning to shift their existing electricity resources and data center facilities towards AI and high-performance computing businesses, hoping to transition from pure mining to computing infrastructure services. Some mining companies are leveraging previously allocated electricity capacity for mining to enter the AI data center market. However, transformation does not mean that cost pressures disappear: mining operations are more directly exposed to fluctuations in electricity prices and Bitcoin prices, while AI computing businesses must bear risks related to GPU procurement, depreciation, and underutilization. Both types of businesses compete for electricity and computing resources, but ultimately, profitability depends on how these resources are converted into revenue.

The third-quarter report released by the stablecoin payment network Borderless.xyz shows that the median cost of sending a $200 remittance through stablecoin funding channels is 1%, or $2; whereas, according to World Bank data, the median cost of traditional remittance channels is 6.36%, or $12.72. In comparison, the cost of stablecoin remittances is approximately 84% lower. This comparison uses Borderless's pricing for the third quarter of 2026 and World Bank data for the same period in 2025.In emerging markets, the cost advantage is also evident. The cost of stablecoin remittances in Sub-Saharan Africa is 2.9%, while traditional transfers are 8.46%; in Latin America, the figures are 1.25% and 5.64%, respectively. In terms of corporate payments, a $10,000 stablecoin transfer to the Eurozone can cost as low as $26 when choosing the lowest-cost service provider, with the median service provider costing $52; traditional international bank wire transfers for the same amount require $135 to $150, including transfer fees and a 1% foreign exchange spread.Regarding settlement speed, the report states that stablecoin payments can reach the recipient's local bank account within minutes. The median settlement time for Brazil's PIX network in the third quarter is 2 minutes, Mexico's SPEI is 3 minutes, and Colombia's PSE is 2 minutes; traditional SWIFT transfers typically settle the next day, with the slowest 10% taking 3 business days. The success rate for receiving funds varies significantly: Mexico's SPEI is 98.6%, Brazil's PIX is 97.8%, Colombia's PSE is 79%, and Costa Rica's SINPE is only 73%. Standard Chartered Bank recently pointed out that although the total market capitalization of stablecoins has grown relatively slowly this year, transaction volumes are still rising, and it is expected that this market will reach $2 trillion by 2030, two years later than previously predicted.

CryptoQuant analyst MorenoDV_ published an analysis indicating that the realized market cap of new whales in Bitcoin is $78.61 billion, while old whales stand at $159.15 billion. New whales account for 33.06%, compared to about 18% earlier in 2026.Since September, the realized market cap of new whales has continued to grow, while old whales have remained relatively stable, with the growth primarily coming from new whales. The realized market cap is calculated based on the price at the last on-chain transfer of the tokens and does not represent the proportion of BTC supply.In terms of cost, the overall cost basis of new whales has decreased from a previous high of around $110,000 to about $68,000 at the end of August, before rebounding to around $77,000. The current BTC price is $82,134, which is approximately 6.7% higher than the cost basis of new whales.The analysis suggests that the data shows large holders buying during the downturn and continuing to accumulate as prices rebound. However, the turnover of the holder group and transfers between addresses can also inflate the realized market cap, so the growth in realized market cap cannot be interpreted as an equivalent influx of new funds. If BTC continues to fall below around $77,000, new whales will incur losses again, increasing the likelihood of selling during a rebound. The inflow to exchanges and realized losses can be used to determine whether this is short-term pressure or if large holders are starting to sell off again.

On October 16, Circle announced that in the first half of 2026, the on-chain settlement amount of USDC exceeded $36 trillion, and Circle minted and redeemed over $315 billion of USDC during the same period, averaging about $1.7 billion per day. The company stated that as of June, USDC accounted for approximately 77% of the global stablecoin trading volume, an increase from 60% a year ago.More attention from the market is focused on the income distribution of USDC. Circle disclosed that the company generated approximately $1.4 billion in revenue in the first half of the year, of which about $819 million was allocated to USDC distribution partners and transaction costs, accounting for about 59% of the revenue; another approximately $473 million was invested in licensing, banking partnerships, settlement liquidity, compliance systems, product development, and multi-chain deployment, accounting for about 34%. According to the announcement, for every $1 of revenue Circle earns, it ultimately retains only about 7 cents in net profit.This announcement may be in response to market concerns regarding "the monopolization of reserve income by stablecoin issuers." Circle stated that partners can share corresponding reserve income by holding and expanding their USDC balances on their platforms; currently, more than 150 trading platforms, wallets, banks, fintech companies, payment platforms, and enterprises have formed economic interests tied to the growth of USDC. Circle also mentioned that Binance signed a five-year commercial agreement with it in September and invested $100 million in Circle.On the product side, Circle announced the expansion of its free redemption mechanism: all Circle customers can still redeem USDC for free through traditional banking channels, with the funds typically arriving within two business days; customers who make payments through the Circle Payments Network or use eligible products such as Arc, Circle Mint, and Circle Wallets will be able to enjoy free, near-real-time redemption capabilities.

Stacks, the second-layer platform for Bitcoin, has released its third-quarter ecosystem report. The data shows that a total of 735 BTC entered the Bitcoin staking system during the first two locking periods. Since the PoX-5 hard fork, the number of STX participating in staking has increased by over 25%, rising from 392 million to 493 million.In the first locking period (Bond 1), a total of 230 BTC was deposited, with participants including 21shares, HashKey Cloud, UTXO Management, and Sypher Capital. The deposit amount in the second locking period doubled to 505 BTC. The locked value of Zest Protocol exceeds 80 million dollars, with deposits over 122 million dollars, total borrowings exceeding 42 million dollars, and 800 Bitcoin deployed as collateral.Stacks plans to launch a self-custodial lending feature backed by staked Bitcoin in the fourth quarter, along with the introduction of the Earn treasury, and further integration of stBTC with platforms such as Zest, Bitflow, and Hermetica. Additionally, Stacks plans to release the Epoch 4.1 network upgrade in early December, which includes improvements to the smart contract language Clarity.

According to Catcher Predict monitoring, in the market prediction event "Seahawks vs. Broncos" on Polymarket, the winning probability of the "Broncos" option in the sub-market "1H Spread -14.5" has experienced significant fluctuations, soaring from 5% an hour ago to the current 24% (a fluctuation of 19%). Please note the impact of related breaking news.

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang stated that COREWEAVE's strength is increasing every day, and its capital costs are actually decreasing.