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Market research firm Counterpoint Research data shows that in the third quarter of 2026, major personal computer manufacturers experienced double-digit declines in sales, with HP down 31%, Dell down 25%, Lenovo down 23%, and Apple down 11%. The firm expects that personal computer shipments will decline by another 27% in the fourth quarter, with business demand being better than consumer demand, but not enough to offset the overall contraction.In terms of shipments, Lenovo shipped 15 million units, with a market share of 26.3%; HP shipped 10.3 million units; Dell shipped 7.6 million units; Apple shipped 5.6 million units, with a share of 9.8%, up from 8.7% in the same period last year, as the MacBook Neo alleviated the decline. ASUS saw a shipment decline of 7%.Counterpoint analyst Minsoo Kang stated that rising memory and component costs are pushing up system prices, causing consumers to delay upgrades. David Naranjo mentioned that the industry is undergoing structural adjustments, with component costs, system prices, and longer upgrade cycles reshaping the market. The report also stated that the increase in DRAM and NAND prices may slow down in the first half of 2027, and Micron indicated that the chip shortage may last until 2028.

According to GMGN data, the top 5 tokens with net inflow in the past 24 hours are as follows:ANDURIL (Pres....oQB): Net inflow of $2,000, with a 24-hour increase of 13.2%, currently priced at $162.4264.McRib (8idE....ump): Net inflow of $2,000, with a 24-hour increase of 21101.3%, currently priced at $0.0008.DJT (DJTu....voF): Net inflow of $703, with a 24-hour increase of 0.8%, currently priced at $6.656.Dacity (nxPq....ump): Net inflow of $703, with a 24-hour increase of 9.2%, currently priced at $0.0133.Dogzilla (Ebb2....ump): Net inflow of $343, with a 24-hour increase of 1631.9%, currently priced at $0.0001.

According to a post by Ki Young Ju, founder and CEO of CryptoQuant, on the X platform, the continuous recovery of Bitcoin's hash rate is an "indirect bullish signal" from institutional investors. He pointed out that a higher hash rate means stronger security and better value storage fundamentals, and most publicly listed mining companies are supported by traditional financial institutions (TradFi). Therefore, the rise in hash rate can be seen as institutional recognition of Bitcoin's security and long-term value. Hash rate is an indicator of the computational power of a blockchain network, representing the number of hash calculations that can be completed per second.CryptoQuant data shows that Bitcoin's hash rate has rebounded by about 45% from its summer low, rising from approximately 726 EH/s in July to about 1,050 EH/s on Wednesday. However, the global hash rate is still below the peak of 1,305 EH/s set in October 2025, when Bitcoin's price was above $111,000. On Thursday, when the U.S. stock market opened, Bitcoin's price was approximately $81,843.Publicly listed mining companies are still expanding their production capacity. Nasdaq-listed NIP Group (NIPG) announced a third batch of asset purchase agreements, which will acquire approximately 4.47 EH/s of deployed Bitcoin mining machines. After the transaction is completed, the total hash rate from the three batches is expected to reach 13.85 EH/s. The company currently ranks 16th among publicly listed mining companies with an operational hash rate of 3.11 EH/s, while Bitdeer leads with 79.9 EH/s. On Wednesday, NIPG's stock price fell 6.8% to $6.1, down 86% over the past year; affected by higher-than-expected inflation data, U.S. stocks experienced the most severe sell-off since July, with TeraWulf, Core Scientific, Cipher Mining, and IREN all seeing stock prices drop by about 12%.

Market news reports that Siemens has signed a cooperation agreement with Nvidia (NVDA.O) for an industrial artificial intelligence operating system.

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) stated in the frequently asked questions document regarding retail payment regulation conclusions that the removal of surcharges for the designated card networks eftpos, Mastercard, and Visa starting from October 1, 2026, is in the public interest. The RBA will lift the ban on the "no surcharge" rule for the aforementioned networks from that date, with the changes based on Standard No. 3 of 2016 and the revisions to the merchant card payment costs and surcharge standards in 2026. eftpos, Mastercard, and Visa have all decided to implement the no surcharge rule from that date, generally applicable to their credit, debit, and prepaid cards, including cards issued overseas.American Express, UnionPay, and PayPal have also decided to eliminate surcharges, but are currently not formally regulated by the RBA. American Express and UnionPay will withdraw from their existing commitments with the RBA on October 1, 2026, while PayPal's no surcharge rule will take effect on October 5, 2026. This scope is limited to fees charged due to customer card payments and does not include surcharges for weekends, public holidays, booking fees, or service fees. Merchants must comply with the new card organization rules unless exceptions apply; businesses, non-profit organizations, and inter-business card payments do not receive a general exemption.The reforms will be implemented in phases. Starting from October 1, 2026, a lower interchange fee cap will apply to domestic card transactions; from October 30, designated card networks and large acquirers must publish the specified card payment fee information on their websites. From January 30, 2027, large acquirers must disclose how the decrease in interchange fees is passed on to merchant service fees; starting April 1, the interchange fee cap will apply to transactions involving overseas-issued cards acquired in Australia, and acquirers must also provide merchants with more detailed statements. The RBA stated that businesses can still factor the costs of accepting card payments into their overall pricing and may offer discounts for specific payment methods.

Meta Platforms has signed an agreement with CEO Mark Zuckerberg, requiring him to continue residing in the jurisdiction where the company's headquarters is located for the next eight years. This move is in response to California's proposed wealth tax, which could result in a tax bill of billions of dollars for Zuckerberg.The agreement allows him to sell a portion of his Class C shares to provide liquidity to address the potential tax burden from California Proposition 40.

NVIDIA upgrades the Isaac general robotics platform, launching a new humanoid robot reference design, development framework, simulation process, and data resources.

According to monitoring by Ai Yi, the Kaito multi-signature address transferred 8 million KAITO (worth approximately 2.25 million USD) to the address 0xd21...B2629 40 minutes ago. This intermediary address had previously received 7 million tokens from the same source three months ago.According to its token unlocking plan, Kaito will have an unlocking of 12.1 million KAITO on October 20, which accounts for approximately 5.01% of its circulating market value. This transfer may be related to the unlocking event.

Elon Musk stated that for SpaceX, a wise move is to sign short-term contracts to lease AI data centers.

The Chief Operating Officer of SpaceX stated that Starlink still has growth opportunities in the enterprise and government business sectors, and future revenue is expected to surpass consumer business revenue.

According to Crypto Briefing, NEAR Protocol has launched a confidential multi-signature treasury management platform called NEAR Business, aimed at crypto-native teams and institutions. It supports handling payroll, vendor payments, cross-chain exchanges, and fund allocation within a single dashboard, covering over 35 blockchains including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana, as well as more than 200 types of assets. Cross-chain transfers are completed through NEAR Intents.The platform operates on NEAR's private sharding infrastructure, with transaction details kept confidential but available for auditing; the platform is free to use, with a 0.35% fee for exchanges, currently limited to invite-only access.

Glassnode published that the key price level for Bitcoin in the fourth quarter is still being held. The institution previously pointed out in the "Charting Crypto" report with Colin Basco and the Coinbase Institutional team that BTC faces resistance in the range of $87,000 to $87,800. Since then, the Bitcoin price has been blocked in that range and continues to oscillate and consolidate below.Glassnode believes that if Bitcoin breaks through the current consolidation range, the market may experience significant volatility, but there is still a large area of selling pressure around $90,000 above.

On-chain data analyst XWIN cited CryptoQuant data indicating that Bitcoin's current on-chain data is showing a significant divergence between whale behavior and the spot market. Although large holders have begun to accumulate again, demand in the spot market remains weak, and the market is transitioning from "seller exhaustion" to a potential bottom. XWIN stated that on-chain data shows positive accumulation signals. Holders of 1,000 to 10,000 Bitcoins have significantly reversed their 60-day net accumulation from negative 62,600 to positive 5,230, indicating that major whales are shifting from a distribution model back to accumulation.At the same time, the USDT reserves on the Binance trading platform have surged from about 790 million USD to 1.76 billion USD, suggesting that potential buying power in the market is increasing. However, spot buying in the U.S. has not kept pace. The Coinbase premium index is currently around -0.1416%, and weekly trading platform flow has turned into a net inflow of 8,428 BTC. Additionally, the short-term holder spent output profit ratio (STH-SOPR) hovers around 0.9982, indicating that short-term holders are still experiencing slight losses near the breakeven point and are choosing to sell.Analysts believe that while the underlying structure is improving, stronger spot demand is still urgently needed to spark a sustainable rebound. They suggest that investors focus on three key signals in the future: the trend of the Coinbase premium index, changes in exchange net flow, and whether the STH-SOPR can successfully rise above the 1 mark.

According to Barchart, the daily Bollinger Bands for Bitcoin have formed one of the tightest widths in the past two and a half years. This indicates that Bitcoin is "consolidating and tightening," possibly preparing for a major market movement.Bollinger Bands are a commonly used indicator in technical analysis, consisting of three lines: the middle band, which is usually the 20-day simple moving average (SMA); the upper band, which is the middle band + 2 times the standard deviation; and the lower band, which is the middle band - 2 times the standard deviation. Historical experience shows that after a significant tightening of the Bollinger Bands, a directional breakout (either upward or downward) often follows. It is common for volatility to suddenly expand from an extremely low state.

According to a report by THE ELEC, Samsung Electro-Mechanics announced on October 19 that it has signed a supply contract for packaging substrates for memory semiconductors with a large global company, amounting to 360.5 billion Korean won. The contract period is from January 1, 2027, to December 31, which is equivalent to 3.2% of the company's consolidated revenue last year.This is the first time Samsung Electro-Mechanics has disclosed a long-term supply contract for packaging substrates. With this addition, the number of long-term supply contracts disclosed by the company this year has increased to seven, with a total amount of approximately 4.3 trillion Korean won. Previous contracts were mainly focused on components such as silicon capacitors, multilayer ceramic capacitors, and inductors, and this expansion includes the packaging solutions business, which produces products such as FC-BGA substrates and BGA substrates.Last month, Samsung Electro-Mechanics announced plans to invest 42.7 trillion Korean won in the Sejong FC-BGA production facility and 25.1 trillion Korean won in the Vietnam packaging substrate production equipment. The company also stated that as part of a large government project, it plans to invest 80 trillion Korean won in the Sejong business site and 150 trillion Korean won in the Busan business site by 2040, and will produce FC-BGA in Busan, Sejong, and Vietnam. A related person from Samsung Electro-Mechanics stated that the growth of the AI and high-performance computing market makes high-performance packaging substrates more important, and the company will strengthen customer supply cooperation and establish a stable supply system.

Ethereum research forum researcher Pierre proposed a faster, aggregatable, and quantum-resistant privacy pool solution.This solution ports a Tornado Cash-like privacy pool to the hash-based SNARK system Flock, which may possess post-quantum security, and uses SHA-256. The solution replaces large circuits with small "single compression" circuits.

Vitalik Buterin (@VitalikButerin) posted that the ideal path for supporting various cryptographic algorithms is through EIP-8288: users generate arbitrary signatures locally, then prove them through STARK, and aggregate them on-chain via STARK, without occupying calldata on-chain, thus Ethereum does not need to add new precompiles. He also mentioned that if lattice cryptography is proven to have security against AI attacks, it can still be used in scenarios such as accounts and wallets through precompiles in the future.Previously, Starknet co-founder Eli Ben-Sasson expressed disagreement with a16z's related views, stating that lattice cryptography has a rich mathematical structure that is vulnerable to AI attacks, and that a simplified version based on modular SIS only appeared in 2012 and lacks maturity. He suggested waiting another 3-5 years until AI has been thoroughly tested before using it for custody of large assets.

According to The Block, Nasdaq-listed company OpenWorld (stock ticker: OPNW) has signed a merger agreement to acquire the AI agency Blocksight.Blocksight's AI agency is expected to serve as the operational layer for OpenWorld's recently announced tokenized financing plan, responsible for transaction structure design, asset verification, and daily reporting, with the total financing plan amount exceeding 1.1 billion dollars.

According to on-chain analyst @ai_9684xtpa's monitoring, Sun Yuchen's address 0x176...0a132 received 72 trillion PEPE from the Poloniex multi-signature address 22 hours ago, worth approximately 28.44 million USD. This is the first on-chain operation of PEPE from this address since June 2024.