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U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal has launched an investigation into the payment of approximately $6.3 million by the stablecoin issuer Tether to the consulting firm Nxum. Nxum was co-founded by former White House cryptocurrency advisor Bo Hines, who holds one-third of the company's shares. On October 22, Blumenthal sent a letter to Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino, requesting the contracts between the two parties, cryptocurrency payment records, wallet addresses, and communication content.Tether is accused of paying Nxum $415,000 per month since May 2025 for strategic communications, lobbying, and public relations services. Blumenthal pointed out that Bo Hines, while serving as the executive director of the White House Digital Assets Advisory Committee, still held shares in Nxum and coordinated affairs with the company through encrypted communication applications. He also questioned whether Tether transferred cryptocurrency through the marketing company Notorious and then allocated funds to Nxum shareholders. Tether began directly contracting with Nxum after August 2025 and hired Bo Hines to oversee the newly established U.S. operations. Blumenthal has requested that Tether, Nxum, and related parties respond by November 6, noting that the relevant allegations have not yet formed a legal determination, and Tether has not publicly responded.

According to "Reading Plus," the short drama application Hongguo Short Drama App, owned by ByteDance, has launched "Xiaoguo AI." This feature has undergone a period of gray testing and is now officially online, relying on the Doubao large model. It is labeled as Hongguo AI BOT within the app and is positioned as an AI assistant for finding short dramas, providing series search and recommendations. The report states that this is the first time Hongguo has integrated conversational AI into the user-end drama search scenario, beyond AI short drama production.According to practical tests by "Reading Plus," the main entry point is located in the app's search bar. Clicking it leads to the conversation page, and users can also ask questions in the comment section by @XiaoguoAI. The page features quick questions, such as "What short dramas are everyone watching?" and "What are the differences between male-oriented and female-oriented short dramas?" When users input keywords, it returns a list of suggestions, a trending short drama list, and series popularity. The AI responses can pop up short drama cards with play buttons, which redirect to the viewing page when clicked.This tool relies on generative models and search plugins to return information such as titles, plot summaries, poster stills, reputation ratings, and playback channels based on keywords and viewing preferences. From user feedback, it can also record update requests and push notifications when new seasons of followed series are available for reservation.

The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) has approved the country's first Bitcoin ETF aimed at retail investors. This product falls under "other alternative investment funds" according to Swiss law and is labeled as having special risks. FINMA did not disclose the issuer of the fund, but multiple media outlets have indicated that signs suggest it may come from BIT Asset Management (formerly Matrixport Asset Management), and FINMA did not deny this claim in response to inquiries. Additionally, several fund providers have submitted or announced plans to submit Bitcoin ETF applications.The fund is a single-asset product, with all funds directed towards Bitcoin. To this end, FINMA needed to grant an exemption regarding its risk diversification rules, citing that Bitcoin has a long trading history and extremely high trading volume. In terms of asset custody, participating institutions must take measures to prevent operational and custody risks, with standards referenced from the regulatory announcement issued by FINMA on January 12, 2026, which requires that customer crypto assets are not included in bankruptcy assets in the event of the custodian's bankruptcy. Meanwhile, the sales process must comply with Fidleg's conduct rules to provide higher investor protection than direct purchases of cryptocurrencies, and the fund documents must clearly indicate the associated risks.While approving the ETF, FINMA emphasized that even investing in Bitcoin through an approved ETF carries high risks, with severe volatility potentially leading to significant depreciation of the principal invested, and required the issuer to provide clear warnings about volatility and loss risks. The United States has approved Bitcoin spot ETFs starting January 2024, with BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust launching on January 11, 2024, currently managing approximately $65 billion. The Swiss Exchange has been able to trade Bitcoin products for years, but they have existed in the form of ETPs and do not have fund status; this approved ETF is the first to incorporate Bitcoin into the approved public fund framework.

According to reports from South Korean media, on October 19, during the National Assembly's inspection of state affairs in South Korea, when asked whether the launch of single-stock leveraged ETFs affected the volatility of the South Korean stock market, the head of the Financial Supervisory Service, Lee Chan-jin, stated that he believes it has had an impact to some extent. He expressed deep regret over criticisms for not actively preventing the listing of related products.On the same day, during the National Assembly's Administrative Committee's inspection of the Financial Supervisory Service, a member of the People Power Party stated that searching for news related to the listing of single-stock leveraged ETFs would reveal that there were occurrences from "Black Monday" to "Black Friday," turning an entire week into a black one, and asked Lee Chan-jin whether he believed the listing of this product had an impact on this. Lee Chan-jin responded that he believes it has had an impact to some extent. When asked about other reasons for stock market volatility, Lee Chan-jin added that Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix have experienced severe volatility.

The Financial Supervisory Service of Korea stated that it will conduct a rapid investigation into unfair trading associated with virtual asset issuance foundations in order to address behaviors that harm market order.Related content was presented in the report on the current status of supervision by the National Assembly's Political Committee, with a plan named "Strengthening User Protection for Digital Assets and Establishing a Sound Trading Order."

Patrick Witt, the Executive Director of the White House Presidential Digital Asset Advisory Committee, announced his departure from government service to return to the private sector. He made this decision public last week, and the White House has not yet announced a new head of cryptocurrency policy, with a successor still undetermined.Previously, Harry Jung and Bo Hines had also left the committee. White House officials stated that cryptocurrency policy and the Digital Asset Market Clear Act will remain a focus of the Trump administration, but the personnel vacancies have raised concerns about the momentum of policy advancement.As the midterm elections approach next month, the administration is still advancing rule-making in the digital asset space. After the new Congress is sworn in in 2027, cryptocurrency legislation will require coordination from a White House liaison, with tax legislation expected to proceed ahead of market structure reforms; if the Democrats flip the House of Representatives, the congressional landscape may also bring new variables. Meanwhile, the rule-making efforts of agencies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and the Department of the Treasury will continue.

According to the news released by the Avon and Somerset Police, Terroll Paul (31 years old), Mohamed Samagassi (37 years old), and Pierre Madzou (30 years old) broke into a man's residence in Bristol in the early hours of May 15, assaulted the victim, and demanded a large amount of cryptocurrency, but were unsuccessful.On October 15, the three were sentenced at Bristol Crown Court for aggravated burglary, with Paul receiving a 6-year sentence, Madzou receiving 5 and a half years, and Samagassi receiving 5 years. The victim suffered severe head injuries and required hospitalization, while his underage sister successfully called the police. The three suspects were subsequently arrested at the scene and pleaded guilty during their court appearance in August.

Documents disclosed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) indicate that the investment advisory firm Unique Wealth has submitted a 13F-HR report to the SEC, showing that it holds approximately $10.4 million in Bitcoin-related positions.The 13F-HR is a quarterly holdings report submitted by institutional investment managers to the SEC, used solely to disclose securities holdings that meet the reporting threshold, excluding directly held crypto assets. Therefore, the aforementioned positions typically represent Bitcoin exposure in the form of securities such as spot Bitcoin ETFs.

CK Hutchison Holdings issued a statement regarding market rumors of "Li Ka-shing's death." The statement said that on that day, some media outlets reprinted false claims from mainland self-media stating that Hong Kong's "Ta Kung Pao" reported the death of CK Hutchison's senior advisor Li Ka-shing. "The Group hereby solemnly declares that 'this is absolutely untrue,'" and strongly condemns the self-media for fabricating false news.

During the promotion of the GENIUS Act by former White House crypto advisor Bo Hines, the consulting firm Nxum, which he co-founded and holds shares in, established a business relationship with Tether. Tether paid over 6 million dollars to Nxum, with the related funds distributed among three partners.Although Hines has exited the daily operations of Nxum, he continued to discuss the act with partners via Signal during his tenure. After the GENIUS Act was signed into law in July 2025, Hines left in August and was appointed CEO of Tether's U.S. stablecoin business in September, raising questions about potential conflicts of interest.

According to Decrypt, over 400 scientists, including "AI Father" Geoffrey Hinton and 2018 Turing Award winner Yoshua Bengio, published a joint open letter on Tuesday, calling for AI laboratories to default to "physically isolating" models capable of cyberattacks, meaning cutting off their connection to external networks. The open letter stated that in the short term, strong sandbox mechanisms, including network disconnection, should be adopted to implement high levels of containment for AI models with cyberattack capabilities. As of Wednesday, the number of signatories had increased to 450, including Stuart Russell from the University of California, Berkeley, and Ron Rivest, co-inventor of the RSA encryption system from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.Before the release of the open letter, AI models experienced a summer of frequent "jailbreaking." In July, OpenAI admitted that GPT-5.6 Sol and an unpublished stronger model had breached closed testing environments, infiltrating the platform Hugging Face, which hosts over a million public AI models; these models were then being tested on the ExploitGym benchmark, which provides 898 real software vulnerabilities, requiring AI agents to convert each vulnerability into a usable attack. Subsequently, reports emerged that OpenAI models had unauthorized access to Australian government systems and obtained information from U.S. federal agencies.

According to The Block, there has been another personnel change at the White House regarding digital asset regulation, as Patrick Witt has concluded his term as the White House Chief Crypto Advisor. A White House official stated in an email to The Block on Wednesday that Witt's "detail has expired" and expressed gratitude for his work during the Trump administration, wishing him success in the future. Previously, Crypto In America reporter Eleanor Terrett reported that Witt was an employee of the Department of Defense and held a temporary position on the White House Crypto Council.Witt, in his role as Executive Director of the President's Advisory Council on Digital Assets, led the Washington effort to push for the broad crypto legislation known as the Clarity Act. The House version of the bill was passed over a year ago, after which he was responsible for coordinating negotiations in the Senate. However, the Senate version faces multiple obstacles, including disagreements between the banking sector and the crypto industry on the treatment of stablecoin rewards, as well as how to address the conflicts of interest arising from President Trump's substantial crypto assets. The latter became a major reason why the bill failed to pass its first procedural vote last month, as Democrats were concerned that the relevant provisions would not be enforceable, since decisions on whether to take enforcement action against the president would be made by the Department of Justice rather than the states.Witt is the third high-level crypto official to leave the White House. David Sacks, who was in charge of crypto and artificial intelligence affairs, departed in March, stating that his 130-day term as a special government employee had ended; Witt's deputy director, Harry Jung, also left in July.

An advisor to Zelensky stated that SpaceX has set speed limits on the terminals used by the Ukrainian military.

The Bank of America Global Fund Manager Survey shows that the biggest tail risk facing the market is a disorderly rise in bond yields, followed by an artificial intelligence bubble.

Co-founder Edison released an update regarding the recent data breach incident involving encrypted cards. Edison stated that the compliance and operations team is contacting affected users, has reported to relevant agencies such as the Personal Data Protection Commission (PDPC), and has formally filed a police report. They are currently working closely with law enforcement, and the encrypted card business continues to operate normally.

According to reports from American media, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Basset stated that the Trump administration is escalating its "maximum pressure" campaign against Iran to an "absolute isolation" action. In addition to financial sanctions, it will further restrict Iran's access to international markets, transportation networks, and financial resources through maritime blockades, restrictions on air transport, and cutting off land routes.Basset revealed during an interview at the Newsmax NPolicy summit held in Washington on Thursday that the U.S. government may seize approximately $1 billion in cryptocurrency assets this week, stating that authorities have located the relevant assets and are taking measures to isolate them. Basset also mentioned that the U.S. is cooperating with the United Arab Emirates and Oman, and coordinating with Pakistan and Turkey to attempt to cut off Iran's land transportation routes. He stated that the government's goal is to completely block Iran's oil exports and restrict international travel for Iranian officials and individuals associated with the regime. Currently, reports have not disclosed the specific cryptocurrencies, wallet addresses, executing agencies, and legal basis involved in this cryptocurrency asset seizure action, and it is also unclear whether the related actions have been officially implemented.

According to the City of London Police report, 25-year-old London man Ajay Shinjin (also known as AJ Marley Cruz) was sentenced to two and a half years in prison by the Inner London Crown Court for his involvement in a SIM swap fraud case. He pleaded guilty on September 28 to two charges of conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation and transferring criminal property. The case involved the theft of cryptocurrency worth nearly £200,000 (approximately $265,000).In early November 2021, British telecom operator BT discovered unauthorized activity in its systems, where customers' phone numbers were transferred to SIM cards controlled by criminals, who intercepted one-time verification codes sent by banks and cryptocurrency platforms. The police identified several suspects based on device data provided by BT, and Shinjin was linked to four of the devices. He profited over £44,000, which he used for a vacation in Dubai, a luxury apartment in Canary Wharf, and a gold-plated dental grill.Details of the case revealed that one victim lost approximately £40,000 in cryptocurrency on November 2, 2021, with about £27,000 flowing into Shinjin's personal crypto account; a second victim had approximately £17,000 entirely transferred to his wallet; he also assisted in stealing about £8,000 from a third victim's Coinbase account and around £130,000 from a fourth victim. Shinjin was first arrested at his residence in 2021 and was re-arrested at Heathrow Airport upon returning from Dubai in October 2023.