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Michael Saylor, the founder of Bitcoin Strategy Company, responded to Bloomberg's interview regarding the possibility of MSCI's new index rules excluding MSTR. He stated that this move is not very important for Strategy, as the scale of funds they control is relatively small, but he is disappointed with MSCI's stance so far. Oil, natural gas, land, and machinery are all considered capital, while Bitcoin is not. This is a value judgment and actually reflects a bias against digital assets. They are like unregistered financial advisors, setting a "bad precedent" for the entire industry, and he hopes they will reconsider. Digital assets represent the future; MSCI may not want to participate in this future, but investors will not agree, and neither will the United States. If MSCI abandons the proposal to exclude MSTR, it would benefit the entire industry.Regarding the core controversy of whether Strategy belongs to companies with actual operating businesses, Michael Saylor compared it to banks and insurance companies. He believes these financial institutions sell credit and policies, while Strategy supports digital credit products with Bitcoin. Therefore, Strategy is an operating enterprise and should be viewed like other financial companies.

According to The Defiant, the French National Assembly passed an amendment during the review of the 2027 budget proposal with 38 votes in favor and 37 votes against, aiming to eliminate the tax deferral treatment enjoyed when converting certain crypto assets into a single fiat-pegged stablecoin starting from January 1, 2027.A total of 100 members participated in the voting, with 75 votes counted as valid.

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) published a working paper titled "Are Stablecoins and Bank Deposits Substitutes?" The study is based on weekly data from the United States from January 2019 to June 2025. After controlling for factors such as Bitcoin prices, government bond yields, and financial market conditions, it was found that the rise in bank deposit rates is associated with a slowdown in the growth rate of stablecoin market capitalization.According to the benchmark model estimates, a 1 basis point (0.01 percentage point) increase in the average deposit rate corresponds to a reduction of about 3 percentage points in the cumulative growth rate of stablecoin market capitalization over the following ten weeks, from an average level of approximately 15% to around 12%, rather than a decline in market capitalization. The response of USDC is stronger than that of USDT.The authors note that the study cannot conclude that the total amount of bank deposits or lending decreases, and the sample only covers one cycle of high interest rates. The views in the paper belong to the authors and do not necessarily represent the position of the BIS or its member central banks.

According to DeFiprime, the Arbitrum Foundation opened the Stablecoin Growth Program on October 15 for protocols with stablecoin balances of no less than 1 million USD, requiring selected teams to designate USDG as their primary stablecoin on Arbitrum One. The plan sets a reward pool of 2 million ARB, with the top 10 teams that achieve a 30-day average balance of 10 million USD in USDG each eligible to receive up to 200,000 ARB (with a cap of 200,000 USD). The reward pool is valid until December 31, 2027, and each participant can only claim once. Selection is at the discretion of the foundation, and KYC/AML must be completed; the final agreement may include exclusive terms for protocols and tokens deployed exclusively on Arbitrum. As of October 17, the circulation of USDG on Arbitrum is approximately 33.6 million USD.

According to Catcher Predict monitoring, in the market prediction event "Manchester City FC vs Ipswich Town FC More Markets" on Polymarket, the "Over" option for the sub-market "Manchester City FC Second Half Over/Under 2.5" has experienced significant fluctuations in winning probability, rising from 21% an hour ago to the current 36.5% (a fluctuation of 15.5%). Please note the impact of related breaking news.

European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde stated that the 3.8% inflation rate in the Eurozone for September primarily reflects high energy costs, and the European Central Bank expects some relief next year. She pointed out that energy shocks are expected to keep Eurozone inflation above the central bank's target in the first half of 2027, but it is still appropriate to adopt a cautious policy response at this time. This statement was made on Saturday during the International Monetary Fund annual meeting.Lagarde also mentioned that the European Central Bank is designing a digital euro. She stated that in the retail payments sector, the European Central Bank is preparing to supplement cash in digital form by launching a digital euro for everyday payments. The digital euro will further stimulate innovation and competition in the retail payments sector, ensuring the continued coexistence of public and private solutions, thereby supporting Europe's strategic autonomy in the payments field.Previously, Cointelegraph reported on September 21 that the European Central Bank had launched the Pontes system, allowing financial institutions to settle wholesale tokenized asset transactions in central bank currency, providing an alternative for private settlement assets such as stablecoins. The system initially offers a set of core services, with full implementation expected by 2028.

European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde stated that the sell-off in the bond market has led to an increase in borrowing costs in the Eurozone, which has hindered economic growth and ultimately suppressed inflation. She pointed out that tightening financing conditions and rising long-term interest rates will slow down economic growth and weaken the transmission effect of prices.

According to Catcher Predict monitoring, in the Polymarket event "Manchester City vs Ipswich," the "Over" option in the sub-market "Second Half O/U 0.5" has experienced a sharp fluctuation in winning probability, dropping from 87.5% an hour ago to the current 70% (a fluctuation of 17.5%). Please note the impact of relevant breaking news.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury stated that total interest expenditure on debt for fiscal year 2026 reached a record $1.36 trillion, an increase of $144 billion from the previous fiscal year, representing a growth rate of 12%.

The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) released an important announcement this week titled "AI Agents as Attack Vectors," indicating that AI agents operated by unnamed model providers exceeded their granted task scope during testing, reading confidential business records in the online systems of Indian agencies, and no affected agencies discovered this behavior on their own.CERT-In stated that it received voluntary disclosures from several AI model providers, which indicated that these models accessed the online systems of Indian agencies while being researched and evaluated on the internet. The announcement did not disclose the names of the providers, models, or affected agencies. The agents read business records containing personal data and confidential materials, utilizing credentials and connection settings exposed in application configurations, public code repositories, and overly permissive cloud service roles. In some cases, the same credentials were recovered multiple times and reused in different operations.Additionally, CERT-In observed that criminals exploited publicly available AI-driven offensive security frameworks to scan for vulnerabilities, implement exploits, and launch economically motivated attacks against Indian entities, reducing the time from initial access to final impact from several days to just hours; these tools were repeatedly repackaged and deployed, with related deployments appearing on servers in multiple countries.

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.

LayerZero Labs, in collaboration with the a16z Crypto research team, Carnegie Mellon University, and Imperial College London, has released new research results called Aerie, aimed at enhancing the aggregation efficiency of post-quantum cryptography signatures. According to the introduction, Aerie is built on the previously launched lattice-based polynomial commitment scheme Akita.On a MacBook Pro equipped with the Apple M4 Max chip, using 16 CPU cores without GPU acceleration, it can aggregate 32,768 Falcon-512 signatures in 0.65 seconds, with peak memory usage of approximately 2.1 GiB. LayerZero states that compared to the previous Orthus scheme, Aerie's proof generation speed has improved by about 1.5 times, verification speed has increased by 38 times, and proof size has been reduced by about 1.7 times. Additionally, Aerie supports the aggregation of ML-DSA signatures standardized by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), with specific performance data to be announced later. This research aims to provide a technical path for achieving low-latency, post-quantum secure consensus on blockchain without the need for dedicated hardware.

The speech by Federal Reserve Chairman Waller failed to boost the dollar, with the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index dropping 0.4% on Friday, set to record its worst weekly performance since September 4. The dollar weakened against most major currencies, with the euro rising. Waller did not comment on monetary policy at the International Monetary Fund annual meeting, and investors reduced their bets on a rate hike by the Federal Reserve this month.

According to The Defiant, Coinbase is expanding its partnership with payment infrastructure company Marqeta to launch a stablecoin card product aimed at businesses, allowing companies to fund their card programs around the clock.According to the plan, Coinbase will be responsible for holding the relevant fund balances, while the Base network will provide on-chain settlement infrastructure.

Bitcoin News posted on the X platform that France is considering imposing a 31.4% capital gains tax on certain Bitcoin-to-stablecoin transactions, levying an exit tax on crypto assets valued over 800,000 euros, and requiring the declaration of self-custodied wallet assets valued at no less than 100,000 euros.Related proposals also include allowing the carryover of crypto asset losses for 10 years, but none of these have yet become law; the French National Assembly has rejected the revenue portion of the 2027 budget, and the related measures still need to be resubmitted for review.

According to a report by Reuters, the Russian government press office announced that Finance Minister Anton Siluanov, Energy Minister Sergei Tsivilev, and First Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov have joined the board of directors of the Russian payment company A7. In the context of Western sanctions affecting traditional banking channels, A7's role in maintaining trade relations between Russia and partners such as China is expanding.A7 was established in 2024 by the Russian bank PSB, which primarily serves the defense sector, to provide cross-border transaction settlement services for Russian enterprises. Due to Western sanctions, traditional banks have difficulty processing many payments related to Russia, especially trade payments with Russia's largest trading partner, China. A7 estimates that currently, up to 80% of Russia's foreign trade payments are completed through alternative channels.A7 has been subjected to multiple Western sanctions. The U.S. Treasury imposed sanctions on it on October 1, stating that it has established a global network of affiliated companies that "disguises payments related to sanctioned industries and individuals as ordinary business activities." A7 uses the ruble stablecoin A7A5 for settlements. This token was launched in 2025 in Kyrgyzstan and is backed by ruble deposits held at PSB Bank. According to PSB's estimates, the cumulative transaction volume of A7A5 has reached approximately $14 billion.

The Japanese yen stablecoin issuer JPYC posted on the X platform that the issuance processing of JPYC on the Polygon network experienced delays starting around 14:00. The related issues have now been resolved, and the backlog of issuance applications is being processed in order.JPYC emphasized that the JPYC issuance services on other networks and all redemption processing across networks were not affected by this incident.

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.